
<IQEmiGHT DEPOSfT. 



/ 

CONTRIBUTIONS 



TO 






LITERATURE; 



DESCRIPTIVE, CRITICAL, HUMOROUS, 

BIOGRAPHICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, 

AND POETICAL. 



BY 



SAMUEL OILMAN, D. D. 




BOSTON: 

CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 

111 Washington Street. 
1856. 






Entered according to Act of Congi-ess, in the year 1856, by 

Crosby, Nichols, and Company, 

in the Clerk's OflGice of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE: 
METCALF AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 



TO 

THE CHAKLESTON LITEKARY CLUB, 

WHOSE SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCES, 

FELT EVEN BEYOND THE PRIVATE SPHERE, 

HAVE AVAILED TO CHARM AND RETARD THE AUTHOR'S DECLINING AGE, 

THESE 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO LITERATURE 

ARE RESPECTFULLY AND CORDIALLY INSCRIBED 

BY 

THEIR ATTACHED ASSOCIATE. 



P E E F A G E . 



In the course of an almost absorbing devotion, for 
forty years, to the duties of the sacred profession, the 
author of the following pages has indulged in various 
exercises of a more purely literary character. To such 
occasional excursions he has surrendered himself, some- 
times as his own spirit prompted, but more frequently 
in obedience to the invitation or the request of others. 
Venturing to judge from the kind manner in which some 
of his productions have been received, and inspired by 
the usual fond ambition of authorship, he is induced to 
publish a selection from these miscellaneous accumula- 
tions of a lifetime. Many of them are now out of 
print, and several have never been published at all. The 
author therefore trusts that the present compilation will 
be regarded by an extensive circle of friends as a wel- 
come memorial, even should it fail of a favorable recep- 
tion from the public at large. 

The different articles have been arranged without ref- 
erence to chronological order, and indeed on no decided 



PREFACE. 



principle of sequence, except a separation of the Poetry 
from the Prose. The dates of their composition, how- 
ever, are affixed to the principal articles, partly as a 
matter of possible interest, partly to explain incidental 
allusions, and partly to vindicate the originality of some 
of the thoughts and views. 

The examination of the philosophy of Dr. Thomas 
Brown will be observed to engross a prominent share in 
this compilation. The works of that remarkable writer 
seem destined to a higher rank amongst the productions 
of the nineteenth century than they have as yet gener- 
ally assumed. Symptoms of returning justice in this 
respect have appeared in different quarters. Even whilst 
revising for the press this portion of the collection, the 
author was happy to recognize the lofty estimate placed 
on the writings of Dr. Brown, in the recently published 
conversations and letters of so competent an authority 
as Sydney Smith. 

Charleston, S. C, March 1, 1856. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

MEMOIRS OP A NEW-ENGLAND VILLAGE CHOIR .... 1 

THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OP NATIONAL LITERATURES . 93 

ESSAY ON POSTURES 127 

BROWN ON CAUSE AND EFFECT 143 

REV. STEPHEN PEABODT AND LADT 190 

ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT . . . . • • • 231 

PERCIVAL'S POEMS 284 

A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS 303 

brown's PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS 348 

THE MAN OP EXPEDIENTS 445 

LEXICOGRAPHY AND LEXICONS ... .... 450 

A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT IN SALEM 474 



POEMS. 

PLEASURES AND PAINS OF THE STUDENT'S LIFE .... 499 

SEQUEL TO THE SAME 503 

HUMAN LIFE 512 

UNION ODE 544 

NEW-ENGLAND ODE 545 

FAIR HARVARD 547 

ODE FOR THE CHARLESTON WASHINGTON LIGHT INFANTRY . . 548 

ODE ON THE DEATH OF CALHOUN 550 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

lines on mrs. parsons 551 

ordination hymn , . 552 

the pledge 554 

the whole -world kin 554 

Bethlehem's greatness 555 

characteristics op a pupil 555 

the silent GIRL 555 

THE SUNBEAM ON MT PATH 557 

THE HISTORY OP A RAY OP LIGHT 558 



MEMOIRS 



A NEW-ENGLAND VILLAGE CHOIR, 

I 



OCCASIONAL REFLECTIONS. 



BY A M E M B E K 



REVISED AND CORRECTED FROM THE THIRD EDITION. 

I 

I 

I 



" What though no cherubim are here displayed, 
No gilded walls, no cedar colonnade, 
No crimson curtains hang around our quire, 
Wrought by the ingenious artisan of Tyre ; 
No doors of fir on golden hinges turn ; 
No spicy gums in golden censers burn ; 
If humble love, if gratitude inspire. 
Our strain shall silence even the temple's quire, 
And rival Michael's trump, nor yield to Gabriel's lyre." 

FierponVs Airs of Palestine, 



MEMOmS 



A NEW-ENGLAND VILLAGE CHOIR. 



Wishing to present a sketch of manners in New 
England, and of some changes that have occurred in 
our taste for sacred music, I have presumed to adopt, 
for the purpose, a kind of desultory narrative. 

The time when the few humble incidents occurred, 
which are recorded in the following pages, embraced 
about ten years, bordering upon the last and present 
centuries. The place was a village, situated not far 
from the river Merrimac; and for the sake of avoiding 
any invidious allusions or interpretations, I shall give 
to the town the fictitious name of Waterfield. 

Many years had now elapsed, since any interruption, 
or indeed anything extraordinary, had happened to the 
music, that was barely tolerated in the meeting-house 
at Waterfield. At the period when our memoirs com- 
mence, the long established leader, Mr. Pitchtone, had 
just removed with his family to one of the new towns 
in the District of Maine, and the choir, which had been 
for some time in a decaying state, was thus left with- 
out any head, or any hope of keeping itself together. 



4 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

For some Sundays after his departure, not an individ- 
ual ventured to appear in the singing-seats. Young 
Williams, the eccentric and interesting shoemaker, who 
was an apprentice to his lather, knew perfectly well how 
to set the tune, but he had not as yet acquired sufficient 
self-confidence to pass the leading notes round to the 
performers of different parts, nor to encounter various 
other kinds of intimidating notoriety attached to the 
office. The female singers, besides, had been so long 
and so implicitly accustomed to their late leader, that 
nothing could have induced them to submit to the con- 
trol of so young and inexperienced a guide. And as 
no other member of the congregation possessed suffi- 
cient skill or firmness to undertake this responsible and 
conspicuous task, the consequence was, that nearly all 
the performers, at first, absented themselves, not only 
from the singing-gallery, but even from public worship. 
Most of them had been so long habituated to their 
elevated position, and their active duty in the place 
of worship, that they could not immediately undergo 
the awkwardness of sitting below among the congrega- 
tion, and were not a little apprehensive of meeting the 
stares of mingled curiosity and reproach, which they 
knew would be directed towards them. In addition to 
these circumstances, many had not the heart to witness 
the embarrassment and pain which would naturally 
be created in the minister and his flock, by the antici- 
pated chasm in the usual routine of worship. Two 
or three, however, of the more courageous in the late 
choir, ventured to attend church even on the first Sab- 
bath after the removal of Mr. Pitchtone. They went, 
indeed, at a very early hour, for the purpose of avoiding 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

notice, and took their seats in some unappropriated 
pews in a very distant and almost invisible quarter of 
the gallery. 

The entire congregation having assembled, the clergy- 
man waited some time for the accustomed appearance 
of the sons and daughters of sacred song. It is almost 
universally the practice, throughout our New England 
country churches, to commence public worship with 
the singing of a psalm or hymn. On the present oc- 
casion, no person being ostensibly ready to perform that 
duty, the minister began the services with the "long 
prayer." Yet, when this was concluded, an imperious 
necessity occurred of making at least the attempt to 
diversify and animate the business of the sanctuary, by 
an act of melody. Accordingly the Rev. Mr. Welby 
announced and read the psalm adapted to the subject 
of the sermon which was to succeed. Then, having 
waited a moment or two, during w^hich a most painful 
silence and suspense pervaded the congregation, he be- 
gan, in a voice naturally strong and clear, to sing the 
psalm alone, still keeping his usual standing position 
in the centre of the pulpit. Only one voice was heard 
to support him. It was that of the venerable deacon, 
who sat immediately beneath, and who hummed a 
broken kind of bass, without the accompaniment of 
words, there being scarcely a hymn-book in the lower 
part of the meeting-house. The same scene occurred 
in the afternoon, with the slight addition of a female 
voice in some part of the house, which lent its modest, 
unsivilful, and half-suppressed assistance through the 
concluding portion of the hymn. 

Matters went on nearly in this way for the space of 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 



a month, at the end of which the singing began to 
improve a little, by the gradual return to church, though 
not to the singing-gallery, of the stragglers who had 
composed the late choir, and who were now willing 
to join in the vocal duties of worship under the au- 
spices of the pastor. At length, when about six months 
had been thus dragged along, an occasion offered for 
a return to the deserted orchestra, in a manner which 
might somewhat shelter the mortification and inspire 
the confidence of the rallied choristers. 

A Mr. Ebed Harrington, who had recently removed 
into the village for the purpose of studying medicine 
with the physician of the place, had some pretensions 
on the musical score. He was an unmarried man, of 
about the age of thirty years, and had been, until this 
period, a hard-working laborer on his father's farm, 
which was situated in an obscure township in New 
Hampshire. His complexion was of the darkest, his 
face exactly circular, his eyes small, black, and un- 
meaning, his form thick-set, and the joints of his prin- 
cipal limbs had been contracted by nature or use into 
inflexible angles of considerable acuteness. He defrayed 
the expenses of his board and medical tuition by labor- 
ing agriculturally the half of every day, for his teacher. 
Dr. Saddlebags. The other half of the day, and a large 
portion of the night, were industriously devoted by our 
incipient Esculapius to the study of his new-chosen pro- 
fession, with the exception of a few evenings which he 
occasionally spent at different places in the neighbor- 
hood. It was on one of these visits that he found 
means to exhibit some imposing specimens of his abil- 
ities in the performance of sacred music. And having 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 



suggested that he had often taken the lead in the choir 
of his native parish, he almost immediately received 
a pressing invitation from some of the most active of 
the singers in Waterfield, to place himself at their head 
on the following Sabbath, and thus enable them to 
supply the lamented vacancy which existed in the ap- 
paratus of worship at their meeting-house. 

The invitation was accepted. That quarter of the 
singing-seats devoted to the female sex was filled at an 
early hour, on the next Sabbath morning, by fair occu- 
pants, furnished generally each with her hymn-book, 
and waiting with some impatience for the other moiety 
of the choir to arrive, and for the services to begin. The 
body of male performers gradually assembled at one 
corner of the building, out of doors, and discussed 
several particulars relating to the important movement 
which was now about to take place. One difficulty that 
staggered the most of them was the manner in which 
Mr. Ebed Harrington, their new precentor, should be in- 
troduced into the singing-gallery. He himself modestly 
suggested the propriety of being conducted by some one 
of the gentlemen singers to the spot. But besides that 
there was not an individual in the circle who conceived 
himself clothed with sufficient authority, or who felt 
sufficient confidence in himself to enact so grave a cere- 
mony, it appeared to be the general opinion, that Mr. 
Harrington, in virtue of his newly conferred office, should 
march into church at the head of the choir. While they 
were debating this point with no little earnestness, the 
time was sliding rapidly away. All the rest of the con- 
gregation, even to the last tardy straggler, had entered 
and taken their seats. An impatient and wondering 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 



stillness mantled over the whole assemblage within, and 
Mr. Welby was on the point of rising to announce the 
psalm, at the hazard of whatever consequences might 
ensue, when, by a sudden, spontaneous, and panic-like 
movement, which I cannot remember who of us began, 
the tuneful collection without suspended their debate, 
and rushed in a body into the front door of the meeting- 
house. Part of us turned off immediately into the right 
aisle, and part into the left. The stairs leading to the 
gallery were placed at the end of each of these aisles, 
at two corners of the building within, so that whoever 
mounted them was exposed to the view of the congre- 
gation. With a hurried and most earnest solemnity, 
the choristers made their trampling way up these stairs, 
and soon found themselves in a large octagonal pew in 
the centre of the front gallery, adjoining an oblong one 
already filled by the ladies. Each individual occupied 
the seat which he could first reach, and Mr. Harrington, 
without being offered the post of honor usually assigned 
the leader, was fain, in the general confusion and for- 
getfulness of the scene, to assume about four inches of 
the edge of a bench contiguous to the door of the pew. 
Here, while wiping from his brow, with a red dotted 
calico handkerchief, the perspiration which the anxieties 
and exertions of the moment had profusely excited, the 
voice of the clergyman in the pulpit restored him and 
his fellow-singers to the calm of recollection, and fixed 
all eyes around upon him as their legitimate guide. 

The tune which he selected was well adapted to the 
hymn announced. Every body remembers "Wells." Mr. 
Harrington had forgotten to take a pitch-pipe with him to 
the place of worship, and there was accidentally no in- 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 9 

strament of any kind present. He was therefore obliged 
to trust to his ear, or rather to his fortune, for the pitch of 
the initial note. The fourth note in the tune of Wells 
happens to be an octave above the first. Unluckily, Mr. 
Harrington seized upon a pitch better adapted to this 
fourth note than to the first. The consequence was, that 
in leading off the tune, to the words of " Life is the 
time," he executed the three first notes with considerable 
correctness, though with not a little straining; but in 
attempting to pronounce the word time, he found that 
nature had failed to accommodate his voice with a 
sound sufficiently high for the purpose. The rest of 
the tenor voices were surprised into the same conscious- 
ness. Here then he was brought to an absolute stand, 
and with him the whole choir, with the exception of 
two or three of the most ardent singers of the bass and 
treble, whose enthusiasm and earnestness carried them 
forward nearly through the first line, before they perceived 
the calamity which had befallen their head-quarters. 
They now reluctantly suffered their voices one after an- 
other to drop away, and a dead silence of a moment 
ensued. Mr. Harrington began again, with a somewhat 
lower pitch of voice, and with stepping his feet a little 
back, as if to leap forward to some imaginary point ; but 
still with no greater success. A similar catastrophe to 
the former awaited this second attempt. The true sound 
for the word time still remained far beyond the utmost 
reach of his falsetto. In his third effort, he was more 
fortunate, since he hit upon an initial note, which 
brought the execution of the whole tune just within the 
compass of possibility, and the entire six verses were 
discussed with much spirit and harmony. When the 



10 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

hymn was finished, the leader and several of his more 
intimate acquaintances exchanged nods and smiles with 
each other, compounded of mortification and triumph, — 
mortification at the mistakes with which the singing had 
begun, and triumph at the spirited manner in which it 
was carried on and concluded. This foolish and wicked 
practice is indulged, in too many choirs, by some of the 
leading singers, who ought to set a better example to 
their fellow-choristers, and compose themselves into other 
than giggling and winking frames of mind, at the mo- 
ment when a whole congregation are about to rise or 
kneel in a solemn act of praise and prayer. 

The greater part of the interval between the first and 
second singing, which was occupied by the minister and 
the devout portion of his hearers in a high and solemn 
communion with the Deity, was devoted by Mr. Har- 
rington and his associates above mentioned to turning 
over the leaves of the Village Harmony, and making a 
conditional choice of the tune next to be performed, ac- 
cording to the metre of the hymn which might be read. 
When the time arrived for their second performance, 
although Mr. Harrington was more happy than before 
in catching the true key-note of the air, yet, either from 
some deficiency of science in himself, or from a misap- 
prehension on the part of those who sang bass, this im- 
portant department of the choir began the hymn with 
a note which happened to be the most discordant of the 
whole scale. The consequence was dreadful to every 
one within hearing, who was afflicted with a good ear. 
Our Coryphaeus interposed his authority to produce 
silence, by emitting through his teeth a loud and pro- 
tracted Hush ! After some little difficulty, they sue- 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 11 

ceeded in starting fairly, and carried on the performance 
with due harmony of tones. 

In the afternoon, Mr. Harrington was at his post as 
settled leader of the choir. It is true that he found him- 
self surrounded by only about half the number of assist- 
ants who had attended the commencement of his vocal 
career in the morning. But no one had ventured to in- 
sinuate to him his incompetency, and several of the 
singers charitably ascribed his mistakes to the accidental 
absence of the pitch-pipe, and to the modest trepidation 
which naturally arose from his first appearance. His 
principal mistake, on the latter part of the day, was that 
of selecting a common-metre tune which ought to have 
been one in long metre. He perceived not his error 
until he arrived at the end of the second line, when, 
finding that he had yet two more syllables to render into 
music, he at first attempted to eke out the air by a kind 
of flourish of his own, in a suppressed and hesitating 
voice. But he was soon convinced that this would 
never do. Had he been entirely alone, he might in this 
way have carried the hymn through, trusting to his own 
musical resources and invention. But it was out of his 
power to inspire the other singers with the foreknowledge 
of the exact notes which his genius might devise and 
append to every second line. They, too, must try their 
skill to the same purpose, and while the whole choir, 
tenor, bass, and treble, were each endeavoring to eke 
out the line with their own efforts and happy flourishes, 
a tremendous clash of discord and chaos of uncertainty 
involved both the leaders and the led together. There 
was nothing in this dilemma, therefore, for him to do, 
except to stop short at once, and select a new tune. 



12 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

This he did with much promptness and apparent com- 
posure, though that there was some little flutter in his 
bosom was evident from the circumstance that the tune 
he again pitched upon, contrary to all rules in the course 
of a single Sabbath, was "Wells," — which, however, 
went off with much propriety, and with none of the inter- 
ruptions that had marred its performance in the morning. 

There are many of the thorough-bred sons of New 
England, whose perseverance it takes much greater dis- 
couragements to daunt than befell the precentorial efforts 
of Mr. Ebed Harrington on this memorable day. He re- 
garded himself now as the fully instated leader of the 
choir in "Waterfield ; a function which he inflexibly main- 
tained, through good report and through evil report, 
sometimes amidst almost entire desertion, and at other 
times with a very respectable band to follow his guidance, 
until his professional studies were completed, and he 
himself removed from the neighborhood, to plunge into 
some of the newly settled territories for an establishment, 
and introduce, perchance, the arts of healing and melody 
together. I have never heard one word of his destination 
or subsequent success. 

The musical concerns of our parish were not involved 
in the same embarrassment after his departure, as after 
that of his predecessor. Young Williams had now in- 
creased in years, skill, and confidence. Nature had des- 
tined him to be a passionate votary of music. He was 
scarcely out of mere boyhood, before he grasped the 
violoncello — or, as we term it in New England, the 
bass-viol — with a kind of preternatural adroitness, and 
clung to it with a devoted and ardent perseverance, 
which very soon rendered him an accomplished per- 



THE VILLAGE CHOIK. 13 

former. Every leisure hour, every leisure moment he 
could seize, were employed on this his favorite instru- 
ment. The first ray of morning was welcomed by the 
vibrations of its Memnonian strings. Many a meal was 
cheerfully foregone, that he might feed his ear and his 
soul with the more ethereal food to which his desires 
tended. Often too were his musical exercises protracted 
far beyond midnight, to the annoyance at first of his 
father's family, who soon, however, could sleep as well 
beneath the sounds of the lad's bass-viol, as if an uEolian 
harp were soothingly ringing all night at their windows. 
As he sat in the solitude of his chamber, a solitude 
sweetened by his own exquisite skill and the indulgence 
of his fond taste, he regarded not the cold of winter and 
not always the darkness of the night. He speedily made 
himself master of his darling science, as far as such an 
attainment was possible from the introductions to all the 
compilations of music within his reach, from Dobson's 
Encyclopaedia,* and from such other appropriate books as 
the Waterfield Social Library and Mr. Welby's humble 
collection of miscellaneous literature might supply. His 
performance was the admiration of all the country round. 
His father's house was frequently visited for the single 
purpose of witnessing the display of his uncommon tal- 
ents. Most willingly did he exhibit his powers before 
the representative to Congress, or Mr. Welby and his 
family, or a bevy of admiring girls, or a half-dozen ragged 
children, who were attracted from their plays in the 
streets and the fields, to be soothed and charmed and 

* Dobson reprinted in Philadelphia the Encyclopsedia Britannica, referred 
to in the text. 

2 



14 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

civilized into silence by our self-taught Orpheus. Now, 
he would draw tears from every eye by the tremulous 
and complaining pathos of the string as he wound 
through some mournful air. Now he would make every 
soul burn, and every cheek glow with lofty rapture, as 
he executed the splendid movements of Washington's 
March, Belleisle March, Hail Columbia, or the much 
less admirable, but equally popular Ode to Science. 
Now, by a seemingly miraculous rapidity and perfection 
of execution, he would exert an irresistible power over 
the muscular frames of his delighted auditors, putting 
their feet and hands in motion as they sat before him, 
and often rousing up the younger individuals who were 
present to an unbidden, spontaneous dance, to the tune of 
" The Girl I left behind me," the " Devil's Dream," or an 
equally magical and inspiring combination of notes that 
extemporaneously flowed into his own mind on the oc- 
casion. During all these scenes, his own fair counte- 
nance was rarely ever observed to alter in the least from 
a certain composed, though elevated and steadfast ab- 
straction. Occasionally, however, the occurrence of a 
plaintive strain would throw a kind of compassionate 
softness into his looks, and some sublime movement of 
melody or new combination of harmony would fill his 
rolling eye with tears. The motion of his arm and the 
posture of his body were indescribably graceful. To 
some persons of extravagant fancy, he seemed, while 
playing upon his noble instrument, to be sitting on a 
cloud, that was wafting him about in the atmosphere of 
sounds which he created. Sometimes the viol and the 
bow appeared to be portions of himself, which he handled 
with the same dexterity that nature teaches the soul to 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 15 

exert over its own body. Sometimes again you would 
imagine him in love with the instrument, as if he had no 
other mistress in the world to fix his serious and impas- 
sioned looks upon, and be agitated by her enchantments. 
For several minutes he would lay his ear down near the 
strings, and then throw his body far back, and his eye 
upward, while, in this new position, his head kept time 
with a gentle motion, and with a sort of unconscious 
ease. He never refused to play the most common or 
indifferent air ; a circumstance that resulted partly from 
his good nature, which would not suffer him to be fas- 
tidious or disobliging, and partly from his own conscious 
ability to make music out of a tune which of itself had 
small pretensions. Indeed, he was one of those few per- 
formers, who array in a new and peculiar dress every 
piece which they attempt to execute. Written notes 
before him were but a skeleton, which he not merely 
clothed with a body and animated with a life, but into 
which he infused a soul and an inspiration that none but 
the rarest geniuses on earth can cause to exist. 

Such was the temporary successor to Mr., or now, 
more properly speaking. Dr. Ebed Harrington, in the 
government of the sacred choir at Waterfield. Charles 
Williams, as I have before observed, was as yet too 
young to take the lead in the melodious department of 
public worship, when that interesting and uncouth per- 
sonage came to reside in the village. But it is very 
questionable whether the pretensions of the latter to his 
honorable office in the gallery would ever have been 
submitted to, during the two years that he remained, 
had he been destitute of the assistance rendered him by 
the musical young Crispin whom I have just introduced 



16 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

to my readers. Charles had been almost constantly at 
his post as leader of the bass, and performer on the vio- 
loncello. Sometimes, indeed, on a fine Sunday morning, 
late in May, or perhaps in midsummer, or early in Octo- 
ber, he would take his instrument, and steal alone and 
unperceived to some retreat about two miles from the 
village. Here our truant genius would seat himself be- 
neath an oak, and try the effect of mingling the audible 
sounds of his viol with the felt harmony of sunshine, 
breeze, and shade ; interrupting for a moment or two the 
chirp of the squirrel and the Greek talk* of the blackbird, 
but then again stimulating them to a more violent little 
concert in company with his own instrument, and the 
long, ringing note of the grasshopper, as it hung sus- 
pended and motionless over the ground, amidst the calm 
glare of a burning sun. The delicious enjoyment afford- 
ed him by such occasions as these would have tempted 
him to very frequent indulgences of the kind, had not the 
music in the meeting-house suffered so much from his 
absence, and had he not been aware that such conduct 
was the cause of considerable uneasiness and half-re- 
proachful regret among a large portion of the congrega- 
tion. Blessed influence of Christian institutions, and of 
the severe forms of social life, that check the movements 
of selfishness and eccentricity, and recall the thoughtless 
wanderer back to the course of duty ! Who can com- 
plain at the comparatively slight sacrifices which they 
enjoin, and at the contribution to the common stock of 

* What schoolboy has not listened with delighted astonishment to the 
almost exact conjugation of something lilce a Greek verb, which the black- 
bird gives him in its IloXXa), ttoXw, neTrXrjKa ? Has the nightingale itself a 
better title to Mr. Gray's compliment of "Attic warbler" ? 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 17 

happiness which they demand, in return for the protec- 
tion, the field of exertion, the inexhaustible sources of 
enjoyment, and the paths to the attainment of every 
species of individual excellence, which they so abun- 
dantly furnish ? 

On the elevation of Charles Williams to the seat of 
leader of the choir, new life was infused into the whole 
vocal company. Years had done something for him 
since the period at which our history commences, but 
experience and the opening native energy of his mind 
had done much more. Implicit confidence was now re- 
posed in his skill and management, even by the shyest 
member of the choir. He had occasionally supplied the 
accidental absence of Mr. Harrington, and had been 
constantly consulted by that gentleman with peculiar 
deference in all the business, and mystery, and appa- 
ratus, incident to the due administration of his office. 
It was even whispjered round in the singing-pews, that 
Charles had often been happily instrumental in correct- 
ing or preventing several blunders on the part of his 
superior, not unlike those which I before recorded as 
distinguishing the outset of that gentleman's career. 

With such qualifications, and such a reputation, Mr. 
Williams entered upon his dignities with the highest 
spirit and the best prospects of success. The choir was 
instantly replenished by all the old deserters and by 
many new recruits. Singing-meetings were appointed 
in private houses on two or three evenings of each week, 
for the purpose of practice and improvement. A large 
supply of the (then) last edition of the Village Harmony 
was procured, and the stock of good pieces, which all 
might familiarly sing, was enlarged. The whole number 

2* 



18 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

of performers was about fifty. This was one of those 
happy and brilliant periods, which all our New England 
churches occasionally enjoy for a longer or shorter term 
in the musical department of the sacred exercises. I will 
not contend that the psalms now went off with much 
science or expression. Charles Williams was fully equal 
to the task of infusing the best possible taste in these re- 
spects into the choir which he led. But he wisely felt that 
his authority did not extend quite so far at present as to 
warrant the attempt to introduce among them any nice 
innovations on the old-fashioned manner of vocal perform- 
ance. He was not their teacher in the art. He was only 
one of themselves, and all he could expect to do was to 
yield himself to the general stream of musical taste and 
prejudice, with the exception of such little improvements 
as he hoped to effect by his sole example, or the commu- 
nication of his ideas in private to some particular friends. 
He accordingly began and executed, the most galloping 
fugues* and the most unexpressive airs with the same 
spirit and alacrity that he would have expended on the 
divinest strains of sacred music. 

Notwithstanding, however, these slight unavoidable 
deficiencies, the present was, as I observed, a bright and 
happy period in the meeting-house at Waterfield. There 
was a full choir. It was punctual in its attendance at 
church. The singing, though a little noisy, was at least 
generally correct in time and tone. A new anthem was 
gotten up at the recurrence of each Fast and Thanks- 
giving Day, and funeral anthems were sung on the Sab- 



* A fugue is a piece of music, in which the different parts start one after 
another, at the interval of a few notes. 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 19 

bath that immediately succeeded any interment in the 
parish. There are few who will not acknowledge the 
luxury of such a state of things, when compared with 
the necessity of enduring, Sabbath after Sabbath, a fee- 
ble, poor, discordant band of singers, or listening to the 
performance of two or three scattered individuals among 
the congregation, who go through their duty with reluc- 
tance, and seem not so much to be singing praises as 
offering up substitutes and apologies. 

Far different from such a picture were the achieve- 
ments of our renovated choir. Every tune which they 
performed seemed to be a triumph over the preceding. 
Charles Williams was so much in his element, that he 
inspired all around him with the same feeling. 

It is true, there were some peculiarities in the man- 
ners and customs of the choir, to which a fastidious 
stranger might object. In warm weather, Charles as- 
sumed the liberty of laying aside his coat, and exhibit- 
ing the perfection to which his sisters could bleach his 
linen, in which practice he was supported by about half 
the men-singers present. Another exceptionable habit 
prevailed among us. As soon as the hymn was read, 
and those ominous preluding notes distributed round, 
which come before the performance of a psalm-tune like 
scattering drops before a shower, that portion of the 
band which sat in front of the gallery suddenly arose, 
wheeled their backs round to the audience below, and 
commenced operations with all possible earnestness and 
ardor. Thus the only part of the congregation which 
they faced consisted of those who sat in the range of 
pews that ran along behind the singing-seats. 

It was somewhat unnecessary, moreover, that each 



20 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

individual performer should beat time on his own ac- 
count. But this was a habit of inveterate standing in 
the church, which nothing short of the omnipotent voice 
of fashion could be hoped to frighten away. That voice 
was not yet heard to this effect in the singing-gallery at 
Waterfield. But it would have cost many an occupant 
there a pang to resign the privilege of this little display. 
Let Mr. D' Israeli and the editor of Blackwood's Maga- 
zine inspect the dispositions of men in their handwrit- 
ing. But as a school for the study of character, give me 
a choir of singers, who are in the habit of beating time, 
each for himself. How could the most superficial ob- 
server mistake these characteristic symptoms? Here 
and there you might see a hand ostentatiously and un- 
shrinkingly lifted above all surrounding heads, like the 
sublime and regular recurrence of a windmill's wings. 
Some performers there were, who studied an inexpres- 
sible and inimitable grace in every modification of 
motion to which they subjected their finger-joints, wrists, 
elbows, shoulders, and bodies. Some tossed the limb 
up and down with an energy that seemed to be resenting 
an affront. Others were so gentle in their vibrations, 
that they appeared afraid of disturbing the serenity of 
the circumambient air. Some hands swept a full seg- 
ment of one hundred and eighty degrees ; others scarce- 
ly advanced further than the minute-hand of a stop- 
watch at a single pulsation. The young student at law, 
the merchant's clerk, and a few others, whom fortune 
had exempted from the primeval malediction of personal 
toil, were at once recognized by the easy freedom with 
which they waved a hand that no sun had browned and 
the contact of no agricultural implement had roughened. 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 21 

If, as we have seen, some of the singers were ostenta- 
tious in wielding an arm to its full extent, others were 
equally ostentatious in using only a finger, or a thumb 
and middle finger joined. To the honor of the choir, 
however, be it said, that there were several of its mem- 
bers, who performed the duty, which then was custom- 
ary, of beating time, without any effort or affectation. 
It should also be ascribed to nothing more than a sense 
of propriety and laudable modesty, that a great part of 
the female singers kept time in no other way than by 
moving a forefinger, which hung down at their sides, 
and was almost concealed amidst large folds of change- 
able silk, or of glazed colored cotton cambric. To this 
a few of them added a slight motion of the head or 
body, while some of the married ladies openly raised 
and lowered their hands upon the hymn-books from 
which they sang. 

In addition to the foregoing general imperfections, 
which prevented the congregation at Waterfield from 
witnessing the beau ideal of a sacred choir, it is to be 
lamented that there were others, which resulted not from 
common custom, but from individual peculiarities. The 
taste and knowledge of music, among all the performers, 
were far from being uniform. While some sang with 
great beauty of expression, and a nice adjustment to the 
sentiment of the happy modulations of a flexible voice, 
others made no more distinction between the different 
notes than did the printed singing-book itself, or any 
lifeless instrument that gives out the tone required with 
the same strength and the same unvaried uniformity on 
all occasions. Nothing, too, could be rougher than the 
stentorian voice of Mr. Broadbreast, and nothing more 



22 THE VILLAGE CHOIE. 

piercing than the continued shriek of the pale but enthu- 
siastic Miss Sixfoot. I shall not disclose the name- of 
the good man who annoyed us a little with his ultra- 
nasal twang, nor of another, who, whenever he took the 
true pitch, did so by a happy accident ; nor of another, 
who had an ungainly trick of catching his breath violent- 
ly at every third note; nor of several of both sexes, 
whose pronunciation of many words, particularly of 
hoiv^ noiv, &c., was dreadfully rustic, and hardly to be 
expressed on paper. Jonathan Oxgoad sang indeed 
much too loud, but that could have been forgiven him, 
had he not perpetually forgotten what verses were di- 
rected by the minister to be omitted ; a neglect which, 
before he discovered his error, often led him half through 
an interdicted verse, much to the annoyance of the worthy 
pastor, the confusion of his fellow-singers, the vexation 
of the congregation, and the amusement and gratifica- 
tion of Jonathan's too good-natured friends. 

There was also a culpable neglect among the male 
singers in providing themselves with a sufficient number 
of hymn-books. That it was not so on the other side 
of the choir, was partly owing to the delicate tact of 
women, which never suffers them to violate even the 
minor proprieties of time and place, and partly to their 
greater attachment to religion. As, in our New-Eng- 
land churches generally, we have no prayer-books to 
serve as a kind of endearing bond between the public 
and domestic altars, the vivid imagination and tender 
affection of the female singer caused her to cherish her 
hymn-book in such a connection. The more rough, 
careless, and indifferent habits of our own sex render us 
less attentive to these sensible memorials for the heart. 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 23 

Accordingly, in our choir, among the men, the propor- 
tion of books was scarcely more than one to four or five 
performers, so that you might often hear some ardent 
and confident individual, who was stationed too far 
from the page to read distinctly, attempting to make 
out the sentence from his own imagination, or, when 
he despaired of achieving that aim, filling up the line 
with uncouth and unheard of syllables, or with inarticu- 
late sounds. It is strange how some little inconveniences 
of this kind will be borne for a long time without an 
effort made for their remedy. It was not avarice which 
caused this deficiency of hymn-books ; far from it ; it 
was only the endurance of an old custom, which it oc- 
curred to no one to take the proper steps to remove. 
Was it not thirty years that Uncle Toby threatened every 
day to oil the creaking hinge that gave him so much an- 
guish of soul, — and threatened in vain? 

But I will no longer contemplate the shady points of 
my picture. On the whole, the blemishes just described 
were scarce ever offensively perceptible, when compared 
with the general merit with which the singing was con- 
ducted and continued to improve for the space of two or 
three years. Besides, our supply of good music was 
equal or superior to the demand. Be it remembered, 
that we were singing within wooden walls to the edi- 
fication of an American country congregation, who 
sprang unmixed from Puritanical ancestors, and not be- 
neath the dome of a European metropolitan cathedral. 

It is impossible to look back without some of the 
animation of triumph upon those golden hours of my 
early manhood, when I stood among friends and ac- 
quaintances, and we all started off with the keenest 



24 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

alacrity in some favorite air, that made the roof of our 
native church resound, and caused the distant though 
unfrequent traveller to pause upon his way, for the pur- 
pose of more distinctly catching the swelling and dying 
sounds that waved over the hills and reverberated from 
vwood to wood. The grand and rolling bass of Charles 
"Williams's viol, beneath which the very floor was felt to 
tremble, was surmounted by the strong, rich, and ex- 
quisite tenor of his own matchless voice. And oh! in 
the process of a fugue, when the bass moved forward 
first, like the opening fire of artillery, and the tenor ad- 
vanced next, like a corps of grenadiers, and the treble 
followed on with the brilliant execution of infantry, and 
the trumpet counter shot by the whole, with the speed 
of darting cavalry, and then, when we all mingled in 
that battle of harmony and melody, and mysteriously 
fought our way through each verse with a well-ordered 
perplexity, that made the audience wonder how we ever 
came out exactly together, (which once in a while, in- 
deed, owing to some strange surprise or lingering among 
the treble, we failed to do,) the sensations that agitated 
me at those moments have rarely been equalled during 
the monotonous pilgrimage of my life. 

And yet, w^hen I remember how little we kept in view 
the main and real object of sacred music, — when I think 
how much we sang to the praise and honor and glory of 
our inflated selves alone, — when I reflect that the ma- 
jority of us absolutely did not intend that any other ear 
in the universe should listen to our performances, save 
those of the admiring human audience below and around 
us, — I am inclined to feel more shame and regret than 
pleasure at these youthful recollections, and must now 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 25 

be permitted to indulge for a few moments in a more 
serious strain. 

How large and dreadful is the account against num- 
berless ostensible Christian worshippers in this respect! 
And how decisive might be the triumph of the Roman 
Catholics over Protestants, if they chose to urge it in 
this quarter ! They might demand of us, what we have 
gained by greater simplicity and abstractness of forms. 
They might ask, whether it is not equally abominable 
in the sight of Jehovah, that music should be abused in 
iiis sanctuary, as that pictures and images should be 
perverted from their original design. For my part, I 
conscientiously think that there is more piety, more of 
the spirit of true religion, in the idolatry which kneels 
in mistaken, though heart-felt gratitude to a sculptured 
image, than in the deliberate mockery which sends up 
solemn sounds from thoughtless tongues. How often 
does what is called sacred music administer only to the 
vanity of the performer and the gratification of the 
hearer, who thus, as it were, themselves inhale the in- 
cense which they are solemnly wafting, though they 
have full enough need that it should ascend and find 
favor for them with the Searcher of all Hearts ! 

This is a rock of temptation which the Quakers have 
avoided ; in dispensing with the inspiration of song, 
they at least shun its abuses ; and if they really succeed 
in filling their hour with intense religious meditation 
and spiritual communion, — if, from their still retreat, 
the waves of this boisterous world are excluded, and 
send thither no disturbing ripple, — if no calculations of 
interest, and no sanguine plans, are there prosecuted, 
and no hopes, nor fears, nor regret?, nor triumphs, nor 

3 



26 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

recollections, nor any other flowers that grow this side 
of the grave, are gathered and pressed to the bosom, on 
the margin of those quiet waters, — if, in short, the very 
silence and vacancy of the scene are not too much for 
the feeble heart of man, which, if deprived of the stay of 
external things, will either fall back on itself, or else will 
rove to the world's end to expend its restless activity in 
a field of chaotic imaginations ; — if, I say, the Quakers 
are so happy as to escape these perils, together with the 
seductions to vanity and self-gratification which music 
and preaching present, then must their worship, I think, 
be the purest of all worship, and their absence of exte- 
rior forms the very perfection of all forms. But, let me 
ask of thee, my heart, whether tliou couldst fulfil these 
severe conditions ? Wouldst thou no longer obtru- 
sively beat and ache beneath the external serenity of a 
Quaker's composed demeanor and unmodish apparel, 
and voiceless celebration ? Thou shrinkest from the 
trial, and art still convinced that the road in which thou 
canst best be trained for heaven lies somewhere at an 
equal distance between the bewildering magnificence of 
the Romish ritual, and the barren simplicity of silent 
worship. 

I have long doubted whether, in the prevailing mu- 
sical customs among our New-England Independent 
churches, there be not something more unfavorable to 
the cause and progress of pure devotion, than can be 
charged against many other popular denominations. 
The Methodist, and the strict Presbyterian, have no sep- 
arate choirs. They have not yet succeeded so far in 
the division of spiritual labor, as to delegate to others 
the business of praise, or to worship God by proxy. I 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 27 

have often witnessed a congregation of one thousand 
Methodists, as they rose simultaneously from their seats, 
and, following the officiating minister, who gave out the 
hymn in portions of two lines, joined all together in 
some simple air, which expressed the very soul of nat- 
ural music. I could see no lips closed as far as I could 
direct my vision, nor could I hear one note of discord 
uttered. Was it that the heartiness and earnestness 
which animated the whole throng inspired even each 
tuneless individual with powers not usually his own, 
and sympathetically dragged into the general stream of 
harmony those voices which were not guided by a mu- 
sical ear? or was it, that the overwhelming majority of 
good voices, such as, I presume, if exerted, would pre- 
vail in every cbngregation, drowned the imperfect tones, 
and the occasional inaccuracies of execution, which most 
probably existed? It did not offend me that they sang 
with all their might, and all their soul, and all their 
strength ; for it was evident that they sang with all their 
heart. I was conscious of hearing only one grand and 
rolling volume of sound, which swallowed up minor 
asperities and individual peculiarities. This was par- 
ticularly the case after two or three verses were sung, 
when the congregation had been wrought into a kind of 
movement of inspiration. Then the strains came to my 
ear with the sublimity of a rushing mighty torrent, and 
with an added beauty of melody that the waters cannot 
give. The language was still distinctly intelligible, and 
the time perfectly preserved. And although, when I 
retired from the scene, I could not say how expressively 
this chorister had sung, nor how exquisitely the other 
had trilled, nor could compliment a single lady on her 



28 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

golden tones, nor criticise the fine science of the counter- 
point, yet I felt that I had been thrilled and affected in 
a better way, and could not but wish that what was 
really to be approved of among the Methodists might be 
imitated in those happier churches, where religion is cul- 
tivated without protracting her orgies into midnight, and 
cordially embraced without the necessity of delirious 
screams and apoplectic swoons.* 

Perhaps it may be thought that the good old Presby- 
terian way of accompanying a clerk, or precentor, who 
is stationed beneath the pulpit, in front of the congrega- 
tion, will most generally secure the true spirit and per- 
fection of sacred music. Born and nurtured an inde- 
pendent as I am, I confess that I sometimes feel inclined 
to the adoption of this opinion, with a few additions and 
modifications. There is certainly an advantage in im- 
posing upon a single individual the business of leading 
the melodious part of public devotion. It must neces- 
sarily constrain the congregation to unite their voices 
with his, unless they are totally lost to all sense of the 
proprieties of the sanctuary. This custom, moreover, 
must exclude those miserable feuds and other sources of 
interruption, which will always to a greater or less de- 
gree disturb a separately constituted choir. 

But in conceding thus much to the children of the 
Westminster Assembly, I would beg leave to be stren- 
uous in insisting upon a recommendation that may ap- 
pear very strange as coming from a disciple of John 
Robinson. I caimot find it in my soul to dispense with 

* I am happy to testify that these features are growing far less charac- 
teristic of the Methodist denomination, than they were at the first publica- 
tion of The Village Choir. 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 29 

the glorious majesty of sound with which an organ fills 
the house of prayer. In the tones of this sublime trophy 
of human skill, there is something that wondrously ac- 
cords with the sentiment of piety. We know that mar- 
tial bravery, love, joy, and other feelings of our nature, 
have each their peculiar and stirring instruments of 
sound. The connection between religion and the organ, 
too, is something more than fanciful. Who has not felt 
at once inspired and subdued by the voice issuing from 
that gilded little sanctuary, which towers in architec- 
tural elegance over the solemn assembly below, and 
seems to enshrine the presiding genius of devotional 
praise ? 

I am aware that even the united aid of a precentor 
and organ is insufficient to check certain tendencies to 
the decline of good singing, which may insidiously creep 
into a whole musical congregation with the lapse of time. 
Tunes, it may be said, grow old, and weary the ear ; 
wretched voices may prevail over the better sort ; in one 
pew, a w^orshipper may always sing the tenor part in a 
voice of the deepest bass ; in another pew, every psalm 
may be screamed through with one whole note out of 
the way; a devotion like that of the Methodists, which 
often seems to make them sing decently in spite of them- 
selves, must not be expected to continue long; a fashion 
of indifference towards this department of worship may 
arise and prevail; and especially, the extensive cultiva- 
tion of secular music in private families may render very 
many ears so fastidious, as absolutely to frustrate the 
object of sacred music at church, since the tasteless and 
indiscriminate clamor necessarily produced by the voices 
of a mixed congregation must tend to excite in the more 

3# 



30 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

refined classes a disgusted and indevout spirit, rather 
than the sweet and lofty aspirations of choral praise. 
On all these accounts, it may possibly be argued that 
our later ancestors have done well in withdrawing from 
the general congregation the performance of this service, 
and assigning it to a select choir, who, by concentrating 
their efforts, and reducing the matter to something of a 
profession, may keep the stream of sacred song at least 
pure, though small. 

Nearly all these sinister tendencies, however, might, 
I apprehend, be counteracted by the application of a 
little care and system. To prevent the repetition of 
old tunes from palling on the ear, a new one might oc- 
casionally be introduced by the clerk, and sung every 
Sabbath until the congregation were familiar with it. 
The affliction caused by bad voices might be disposed 
of by the appointment of a musical censor, or standing 
committee, whose duty it should be to exercise now and 
then an act of delicate authority, acquainting the well- 
meaning offenders with the fact of their vocal disability, 
and requesting from them in future an edifying silence. 
As to the decay of devotion, and the increase of indif- 
ference among a congregation, these appear to me to be 
far from good reasons for establishing a separate choir, 
and are rather proofs that such a choir will effect no sort 
of good. With respect to the last evil which a select 
choir is supposed to avoid, the fastidiousness occasioned 
by the private and profane cultivation of musical taste, I 
know not why a whole congregation, or at least all the 
efficient voices in it, may not be systematically taught 
good church music, and the best and purest taste be 
made general among them. 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 31 

But I will candidly allow that some of these schemes 
of improvement are rather visionary than practical. Sit- 
ting at home in one's office, one can easily devise rem- 
edies for existing social defects, but in attempting to put 
them into execution, the science of human nature is 
found to be ten times more embarrassing than hydro- 
statics itself. Some obstinate pressure from an unsus- 
pected quarter may burst over the feeble mounds which 
we are fondly erecting about an imaginary reservoir of 
beauty and tranquillity. It is a very enchanting employ- 
ment of the mind to draw sketches of a kind of abstract 
congregation, where every one present joins in the prayer, 
and listens profitably to the sermon, and keeps constantly 
awake, and takes devout part in the psalmody, and where 
no eye is suffered to wander, nor attention to flag, nor 
worldly dreams to intrude. But where is there such a 
congregation on earth ? And would even a Handel suc- 
ceed in tutoring a mixed audience into a celestial choir 
of angels? On these accounts, I am not disposed to 
push my censures on my native communion too far. 
Perhaps novelty and imagination have done a little in 
recommending to me the practices of other churches, and 
if I were familiar with the whole history of their musical 
condition, I might tell as many strange stories of them 
as I am rehearsing of ray own. I am not sufficiently 
read in Puritanical antiquarianism to know whether the 
Independents once resembled the Presbyterians in the 
mode of conducting sacred music, and afterwards found 
it necessary in the course of time to institute distinct 
choirs, or whether they on purpose instituted a custom 
diametrically opposite to that of their rival sectaries, 
after the fashion in which these last had themselves 



32 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

abolished surplices and organs. Neal* is silent on these 
curious points. If one may judge from some merry- 
traditions prevalent in New England, our good fore- 
fathers had no choirs, but sang under the dictation of 
one and sometimes two lines at a time from the minister 
or a clerk. Most of us have heard of singular divisions 
to which poor Sternhold and Hopkins were subjected by 
this custom. Thus, 

" The Lord will come, and he will not 
Keep silence, but speak out," 

used to make perplexing sense to the pilgrims, when 
given out to them by a line at a time ; for that such was 
the manner of uttering it, I have understood from a cler- 
gyman who learned it at a Massachusetts Convention 
dinner twenty years ago, where the agreeable and Or- 
thodox Dr. set the table in a roar by relating the 

anecdote. It is probable, then, that experience and ne- 
cessity, in the lapse of time, have forced upon our congre- 
gations the present universal custom of assigning to a 
few individuals the task of leading the praises in public 
worship. It might now be dangerous, or rather imprac- 
ticable, to introduce a reformation. If imperfections ex- 
ist, perhaps they are a choice of the least. Yet still it 
were to be wished that the choir might not be regarded, 
so much as it is, the sole medium through which this 
portion of worship is offered. It were to be wished that 
our audiences would consider that body as leaders only, 
not performers ; to be followed and accompanied, not to 
be listened to for luxurious gratification, or fastidious 
criticism, or as an eked-out variety of the tedious busi- 

* Historian of the Puritans. 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 33 

ness of a Sunday. I can conceive that a choir, if prop- 
erly instituted and administered, might be exceedingly 
useful in extending and preserving a true tone of taste, 
in keeping up a good selection of sacred music, and in 
acting, so to speak, as the teachers of the congregation, 
in these and kindred respects. But in the very duty thus 
prescribed them lies their deplorable danger and tempta- 
tion. They are unavoidably liable, as was above inti- 
mated, to resolve the matter into a mere profession. In 
the study of sacred music as a science, and the cultiva- 
tion of it as an art, they forget its ultimate object. Nor 
could much else be expected from the narrowness of the 
human mind. Must it not be hard to attend to the 
thousand little circumstances which a skilful perform- 
ance requires, and at the same time to keep the heart 
strained up to a pitch of due devotion ? And on the 
supposition that by practice and habit we can acquire a 
perfect familiarity with the pieces to be performed, and 
a mutual confidence can be obtained among all the 
members of the choir; yet, alas! it is in the very process 
of cultivating this practice and habit, that the spirit of 
devotion is apt to evaporate, and to leave us admirable 
performers rather than cordial worshippers. 

This state of things, moreover, has its temptations for 
the audience at large. The more beautiful the music, 
the greater is their inclination to listen and admire, 
rather than to bear a part. It seems a kind of sacrilege 
to let my indifferent voice break in upon the divine 
strains which are charming my ear. But the real sacri- 
lege is in my refraining from the duty. Probably, about 
the most perfect and affecting sacred music in this coun- 
try is that at the Andover Theological Seminary. Yet 



34 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

who, in listening to the exquisite anthem sung at the 
anniversary of that institution, does not find himself un- 
consciously betrayed into an earthly ecstasy of weeping 
admiration, in which, on analysis, he is surprised and 
ashamed to find that mere religion has but little, if any, 
share ? 

Such always have been and always will be the dan- 
gers resulting from the conversion of taste and the arts 
into handmaids of religion. Perpetual efforts are requi- 
site to keep them from becoming her mistresses at last. 
I appeal to the consciences of hundreds of congregations, 
who are in the habit of sitting. Sabbath after Sabbath, 
with Epicurean complacency, and silently listening to 
the music above them, as to a gratuitous and pleasant 
entertainment. I appeal with more confidence to the 
consciences of a thousand choirs, who are engrossed in 
the anxious business of carrying a psalm off well, and 
are distracted with numerous likings and antipathies 
about difi'erent tunes, whether they do not commonly feel 
cut off, as by a kind of professional fence, from the devo- 
tional sympathies and sacred engagements of the con- 
gregation in general. Sharing no active or conspicuous 
part in the other services, but so very active and conspic- 
uous a part in owe, is it not the case, that they take little, 
if any, interest in the former, and regard them rather in 
the light of a foil to set off" their own paramount achieve- 
ments, than as a votive wreath, into which it is their 
privilege, duty, and felicity to weave a humble flower ? 

Sorry I am to acknowledge that such were the pre- 
dominant feelings in the choir at Waterfield at that point 
of time in its history from which I have been led insen- 
sibly so far away by a dull train of digressive reflections. 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 35 

It is impossible to say how much of this defective senti- 
ment may have been owing to the circumstance of our 
leader being a gay and rather inconsiderate young man, 
whom the whole of us were constrained to admire for his 
musical excellence and many parts of his private charac- 
ter. Certain it is, that Charles Williams had no other 
holier aspiration or thought at that time, than to acquit 
himself with applause as the chief of a vocal company. 
In every other respect, his example would scarcely be 
recommended on the score of seriousness or piety. A 
little knot of whisperers was often gathered round him 
during both the prayer and the delivery of the sermon, 
who began, perhaps, with discussing some points con- 
nected with the common business of the choir, but gen- 
erally suffered the conversation to stray among still less 
appropriate and less excusable topics, until the occur- 
rence of a jest or witticism from Charles betrayed them 
into something more than a smile, and reduced them to 
the necessity of separating from each other, in order to 
escape violating the more obvious decencies of the place. 

Then, again, it ought not to have been Charles Wil- 
liams, of all persons, who scribbled with a lead pencil 
upon every blank leaf of every hymn-book and singing- 
book within his reach, filling them with grinning carica- 
tures, with ridiculous mottoes, and with little messages 
to the adjoining pew, some of the occupants of which 
would blush, when they found themselves glancing with 
greater eagerness at these irregular and unseasonable 
billets doux, than listening to more edifying productions 
from the pulpit. 

And adieu to the composure of that fair chorister for 
one morning at least, to whom Charles Williams pre- 



36 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

sented a bunch of dill, a pleasant little herb, resembling 
caraway, and common in the gardens of New England, 
the taste of whose aromatic seeds often serves in summer 
to beguile some forlorn moments that will occur to many 
attendants at the meeting-houses of this blessed land, as 
well as elsewhere. Not that a gallant attention of this 
kind from the hands of my youthful hero occasioned 
sufficient perturbation in the mind of the receiver to 
drown her voice and prevent her from performing her 
part in the musical services. On the contrary, such an 
incident generally had the eflfect of inspiring her with 
more than usual animation, loudness, and expressiveness 
in her singing, the cause of which could be conjectured 
by none save such as happened to unite to an accidental 
observation a sagacious philosophy. No other obvious 
symptoms of agitation were allowed to escape her watch- 
ful self-possession, except perhaps neglecting to keep her 
snow-white pocket-handkerchief folded up as neatly as 
usual by the side of her hymn-book, and an inability to 
recollect the text when she was examined by her decrepit 
grandmother at home. 

Nor were these favors on the part of our leader, in 
general, very discriminating or partial with respect to 
their objects. If Charles's bass-viol could have enjoyed 
a posy of dill, it would, often, undoubtedly, have been a 
successful rival of his more conscious and susceptible 
mistresses for such attentions. The time had not yet 
arrived for the tenderest of all passions to become also 
the most overwhelming and absorbing in his soul. He 
had indeed too much constitutional sensibility not to 
find on his hands a succession of weekly or monthly 
idols of his imagination ; but at the same time he had 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 37 

too much juvenile carelessness and too triumphant a 
presentiment of many exploits yet to be achieved by his 
genius for music, to allow any very deep and lasting im- 
pressions on his heart. Music, praise, and beauty were 
to him equally intoxicating subjects of contemplation ; 
he had not yet had enough of the first two, to admit of 
his yielding himself entirely up to the influence of the 
last. 

From the few sketches I have already given of the 
character of this young man, it will not excite surprise 
in my readers to learn that his parents, his friends, and 
himself entertained the wish of changing his present 
sphere and prospects in life. So much notice had been 
taken of him in various ways ; his general capacity and 
activity were so conspicuous ; and there was something 
about him so interesting, apart from his eminence as a 
young musical performer, that it seemed to be almost 
a defiance of Providence to confine him to the obscure 
profession of a sedentary mechanic. 

I use not the word ignoble^ nor any other term of dis- 
paragement or contempt, as applicable to that vocation. 
I am too sturdy an American for that. Happily, in our 
country, we have scarcely a conception of what the epi- 
thet ignoble signifies, except in a purely moral point of 
view. The aristocratical pride- of Europe accounts for 
this, by insisting that we are all plebeians together, and of 
course that distinctions of rank among us are ridiculous. 
Our own pride, of which we have our full share, accounts 
for the circumstance on the opposite hypothesis, that we 
are a nation of high-born noblemen. But this is a poor 
dispute about names. The truth is, we are neither a 
nation of noblemen nor plebeians. How can such cor- 

4 



38 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

relative terms be applied with any shadow of correct- 
ness, when the very political relations which they imply 
do not exist ? It is using a solecism to call Americans 
plebeians, because to that class belongs the conscious 
degradation of witnessing above them, in the same body 
politic, an order of men born to certain privileges of 
which they are destitute by birth themselves. And for 
a similar reason, it is equally a solecism to regard our- 
selves, even metaphorically, as noblemen. 

Why then did Charles Williams and his friends de- 
sire him to emerge from the calling in which his youth 
had been passed? O, we Americans have our prefer- 
ences I We think it an innocent and a convenient thing 
to draw arbitrary lines of distinction between different 
pursuits ; otherwise, the circle of one man's acquaint- 
ance would often be oppressively large. It is a pleas- 
ant employment, too, to clamber over these distinctions 
in life. Perhaps there is not a country in the world, 
where occupations are so often changed as in America. 
We are restless and proud, and since our civil institu- 
tions have established no permanent artificial gradations 
among us, we have devised them ourselves. Yet still it 
is a matter which we act upon rather than talk about. 
No American lady would dare to refuse her neighbor's 
invitation professedly on the score of the other being 
beneath her in society. Yet her refusal would be as 
prompt and decided as any lady's in England, towards 
an inferior in rank. 

I do not wish to analyze too minutely the aristocrati- 
cal leaven among us. I do not exactly understand its 
principle of operation myself. Pedigree it certainly is 
not, though that perhaps is one of its elements. Wealth 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 39 

and education have something to do with it. Different 
vocations in life have much more. Various degrees of 
softness and whiteness of the hands are perhaps as 
good criterions as anything. Certain sets of persons do 
somehow contrive to obtain an ascendency in every 
town and village. But in the present state of society in 
our country, this whole subject is extremely unsettled. 
The mass is fermenting, and how the process will result 
eventually, time only can decide. Probably some future 
court calendar will rank among the first class of Ameri- 
can citizens all families descended in lines, more or less 
direct, from former presidents of the nation, heads of 
departments, governors of States, presidents of colleges. 
Supreme Court judges, commodores, and general offi- 
cers. The second class may comprehend the posterity 
of members of Congress, circuit and state judges, clergy- 
men, presidents of banks, professors in colleges, captains 
of national vessels, leaders of choirs, and perhaps some 
others. I have no curiosity to speculate upon inferior 
classes, nor to determine any further the order in which 
far distant dinners shall be approached by eaters yet 
unborn, or future balls shall be arranged at Washing- 
ton.* 

It is a difficult thing to say precisely how much my 
hero was actuated by mere ambition in his wish to 
change his course of life. I do not think he despised 
his paternal employment. He had not much reason 

=* The London Quarterly Review (1835), in commenting on some sen- 
tences in the two paragraphs above, which it had somewhere or other 
picked up, takes them quite au serieuz, and makes them the occasion 
of a grave and rather ill-natured attack on the character of American 
society ! 



40 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

himself to complain of the proud man's contumely, in 
his own native village. But there were two strong rea- 
sons, besides those before specified, which operated in his 
father's mind to determine him on the project of dis- 
missing his son from his present occupation. One was, 
that he was a very unprofitable apprentice. His passion 
for his favorite art encroached too largely on his time. 
A round of visits and frolics, to which his musical and 
campanionable qualities exposed him, absorbed the lat- 
ter portion of many an afternoon in preparations of 
dress, and the former part of many a morning in sleep- 
ing away the effects of such expeditions. The other 
reason was, that it seemed to be cruel to confine the 
lad down to an employment for which he had no in- 
clination, and even no mechanical aptitude. There 
was little chance of his ever procuring a generous liveli- 
hood in that employment, and there were other profes- 
sions more suited to his excursive and occasionally book- 
ish disposition. These would have been sufficient rea- 
sons for his father to make the experiment of some other 
course of life for his son, more conformable to his taste 
and character, even if paternal vanity had not whispered 
into his ear, that his boy was born for very great things 
yet I 

In New England, before the imposition of the Embargo, 
and in times of peace, there were two ways of rising very 
high in the world. The one was, to become the clerk of 
some wholesale or retail merchant in Boston, and the 
other, to pass through a college. No aspiring lad through- 
out the country could think of any other avenue to distinc- 
tion. Charles Williams was not a lover of money or of 
trade. He was among the very few youths of his native 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 41 

region, who arrive at the age of thirteen without barter- 
ing a penknife, or at that of nineteen without cheating or 
being cheated in the exchange of watches. Accordingly, 
though he had a distant relative in Boston, who, while 
yet a minor, had gone four times every year to the mar- 
ket of that metropolis, with a cart full of such assorted 
commodities as were produced in his native town, and 
was now one of the wealthiest merchants on the Ex- 
change, Charles obstinately shut his eyes to the prospect 
of entering this gentleman's counting-house. There was 
something in literary pursuits much more congenial to 
the taste and habits of his mind. 

With all his follies and eccentricities, he had a warm 
friend and admirer in the Rev. Mr. Welby, who was for 
sending every young man of the most ordinary capacity 
to college, that had a soul sufficiently large even barely 
to meditate on such a purpose. Not that Mr. Welby's 
object, exactly, was to swell the list of liberally educated 
persons belonging to the place where he was settled, 
whenever he should communicate to the Massachusetts 
Historical Society the topographical and antiquarian 
account of the town of Waterfield. The propensity in 
question rather seemed to be with him a kind of weak- 
ness, and one, too, with which many of his profession in 
New England are afflicted. Owing their own impor- 
tance in life, and their peculiar opportunities for useful- 
ness, to their collegiate education, they have no idea that 
any greater blessings under the skies can be conferred 
on an unmarried man, of whatever talents, and at what- 
ever age, than causing him to leave the plough or the 
workshop, and, after a struggle of seven years between 
the Latin dictionary and despair, to obtain a degree. It 

4=* 



42 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

is not surprising, therefore, that the warm-hearted Mr. 
Welby should offer to become Charles's gratuitous in- 
structor in preparing him for college, — an offer which 
was gratefully accepted. 

Although our hero was far from being so apt a schol- 
ar in the niceties of the Greek and Latin tongues, as we 
have already seen him in the science of music, yet the 
novelty and dignity of the pursuits which he had now 
adopted, the definite object proposed for him to accom- 
plish, and the shame of abandoning his aim in defeat, 
unitedly prompted him to undergo one or two years of 
pretty severe application to study. During this time he 
was still a leader of the village choir, though I cannot 
say that the partial change in his private life and habits 
operated in correcting many of those reprehensible char- 
acteristics which I have before lamented as derogatory 
to our singing-pew.* And although we had been long 
taught to anticipate his departure, yet words can scarce- 
ly represent the sorrow and dismay with which we bade 
him farewell on the Sabbath before his setting off" for 
Dartmouth College. 

On the next morning at daybreak, a few of us were 
at his father's threshold to shake hands with him once 
more. He had already breakfasted, and had mounted 
the horse which was purchased for the occasion, to be 
disposed of again, on the best terms possible, when he 



^ I had some thoughts of describing a few of the effects which Charles's 
new mode of life, and new topics of consciousness and aspiration, pro- 
duced on his behavior in private company; but the sketch might clash 
a little with a picture of a young farmer fitting for college, which now 
lies by me in an unfinished manuscript history of a country academy in New 
England, and which may possibly hereafter be presented to the public. 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 43 

should have entered college. A huge pair of saddlebags, 
the heirloom of his family for several generations, hung 
across the horse behind, and contained some changes of 
wearing-apparel, together with his books, and various 
articles of pastry for the road, which he owed to the care 
of his sisters, and some of their female friends. He had 
already repeated his salutations to his moist-eyed fam- 
ily and acquaintances, and was holding the reins in his 
left hand ready to start, when, at a signal from him, I 
reached him his bass-viol, enclosed in a large leathern 
case made by his good father for the purpose. He re- 
ceived it in his trembling right hand with a look, gleam- 
ing through his agitated countenance, which seemed to 
say, I leave not every friend behind, — and spurred off 
his horse up the margin of the river. 

" And who was the next leader of the choir ? " is a 
question, which, (may I humbly hope?) these memoirs 
have excited sufficient interest for my susceptible readers 
to propose. With great diffidence I am persuaded to 
answer, that it was their humble servant. Who or what 
I am, separately from my once having discharged the 
honorable function just mentioned, it is of no sort of 
consequence to know, and it is clear from my anon- 
ymous title-page, that I do not think the knowledge 
would contribute to the eclat of my humble production. 
If any lines in the following portrait of myself appear to 
be favorably drawn, let not vanity be ascribed to the act, 
while I seek to hide the original, and even his very name, 
from the public gaze.* 

^The Village Choir, in former editions, was published anonymously. 
There were no real grounds, therefore, to ascribe to the author the in- 
cidents and attributes enumerated in the text. In fact, he never was the 



44 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

Previously to the departure of my friend Charles Wil- 
liams, I had acted as player of clarionet to the choir; 
not, I fear, always with the greatest reputation ; for I 
scarcely remember a Sunday of my performance, when 
my instrument did not at least once through the day 
betray itself into a hideous squeak, as involuntary on my 
part as if there had been a little evil spirit within the 
tube, sent there to tempt and torment me. At these 
agonizing moments, I would cast one glance at the 
countenance of Charles Williams, and, finding that there 
was in that image of native civility no mark of fretful 
reprehension or of tittering infirmity, I proceeded in my 
part; — nor do I know how I discovered that my fellow- 
singers were not quite so composed as their leader, unless 
it were, that while, from alarm and mortification, my face 
was reddening, and my perspiration flowing, my eyes 
were enlarged from the same cause, and thus extended 
the sphere of their lateral vision. But I am no optician, 
and hazard nothing on this point beyond conjecture. I 
believe it was instinct that prevented me, on such oc- 
casions, from seeing so far as into the adjoining pew. 
There was one face there, on which, if I had ever seen 
a smile approaching to derision, I know that it would 
have broken my heart. 

But if I do not deceive myself, the squeak in my clari- 
onet was the only ridiculous thing about me, and was 
probably but the more amusing from its striking con- 
trast to the general gravity of my deportment. On 
aying aside, therefore, this instrument of my little dis- 

leader of a choir in his life, nor ever played on the clarionet, and only intro- 
duced his nominis umbra to enlarge the dynasty of his choristers, and to 
complete the varied and veritable history of a Village Choir. 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 45 

graces, which was a necessary step towards my lead- 
ing the choir with effect and energy, I trust I had no 
enormous disqualifications for the office. The authority 
of Charles had been sustained solely by his transcendent 
musical talents ; mine, I felt, was to be preserved by the 
most exemplary demeanor, and an assiduous attention to 
my duty. I could only boast of a mediocrity in musical 
knowledge and vocal execution. If I was far below 
my predecessor in accomplishments requisite for the 
office, I at least avoided the mistakes into which Mr. 
Harrington had been often plunged. Until a calamitous 
concurrence of circumstances, soon to be rehearsed, not 
an individual, I think, left the choir during my admin- 
istration, with the exception of those whom death or 
removal out of town subtracted from our number. I 
loved the office, for it gave me a little importance, and 
I was, at that time, of no great account in the parish in 
other respects. Besides, I was extremely attached to 
public worship, and to all its hallowed decencies, think- 
ing it an honor to exercise the superintendence over so 
important a department as that assigned to me. With 
regard to punctuality at meeting, (for so we all call 
church in New England,) the minister himself never 
outstripped me in that particular. He has more than 
once, on a stormy day, without commencing service, 
dismissed my single self, together with one other parish- 
ioner, who appeared at meeting only in such weather, 
and came then, as he whimsically alleged, to fill up; 
and often, on some of our terribly cold and snowy Sun- 
days, when seven or eight worshippers in leggins* would 

* A sort of cloth boot used to protect the legs against snow. 



46 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

well-nigh drown the preacher's voice with the prodigious 
knocking and stamping of their feet, I was found alone 
at my post in the singing-gallery, suffering in perfect 
silence the agony of my frost-bitten extremities, and 
permitting my attention to be no farther diverted from 
Mr. Welby, than now and then in watching the dense 
volumes of congealed vapor, that were breathed out 
from a few scattered pews in the almost vacant edifice. 
So far as I can impartially judge, I was one of the 
most peaceable and unpretending of men. I gave out 
always, without the least hesitation, whatever tune was 
suggested to me by any individual in the choir, sacrific- 
ing with pleasure my own little preferences, and what 
is more, the pride of authority, to the gratification of 
others. Perhaps the general manners of the choir were 
improved during my precentorship. Let me with mod- 
esty say, and with deference to the shade of my dear 
friend Charles, who is now no more, that my own 
example probably contributed to some slight amend- 
ment in our body after his departure. I had long since 
formed a secret resolution in my breast, that no old 
man in the congregation should be more attentive to 
the services than myself, and I carried it into effect. 
This naturally influenced a few of my immediate com- 
panions to adopt a similar deportment ; and the good 
order of the rest of the choir suffered at most only a 
negative violation, from the sleep of some, and the stud- 
ies of others, who preferred looking over the tunes of the 
Village Harmony, or reading the everlasting Elegy on 
Sophronia,* or amusing themselves with the inscriptions 

* This Elegy was set to music by I know not whom, and continued to be 
inserted in some dozen editions of the Village Harmony. 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 47 

of their late leader, to receiving the benefits which might 
have been derived from Mr. Welby's excellent sermons. 

After a year had glided away very nearly in this man- 
ner, some sensation was produced in the choir and con- 
gregation, and, ultimately, some distm*bance occasioned 
to my own peace and happiness, by the addition of a 
gentleman to our number, who, on several accounts, had 
no small pretensions. He was the preceptor of an acad- 
emy, situated, if I recollect right, not more than ten miles 
from the town of Waterfield. He was paying his ad- 
dresses to a young lady of this last-mentioned place, and 
therefore seized on the opportunities which a remission 
of his duties every Saturday afternoon allowed him, to 
visit the object of his affections. The Sabbath, of course, 
was spent by him in our village, and, as he was a pro- 
fessed admirer and performer of sacred music, and was 
a gentleman of liberal education, genteel though forward 
manners, and a superior style of dress for a country town, 
he w^as soon introduced into the singing-pew, and with- 
out the least difficulty found a seat at my left hand. 
Being blest with a happy degree of modest assurance, it 
did not require a second invitation for him to assume 
habitually the same place afterwards, as a matter of 
course. 

On the very first Sabbath that he joined us, he started 
me a little by requesting that Old Hundred might be 
sung to a psalm which the minister had just begun to 
read. I told him that I should be very glad to oblige 
him by announcing that tune to the choir, but the truth 
was, it had not been performed in our meeting-house 
probably for thirty years; — that there were but four or 
five singers who were acquainted with it, being such only 



48 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

as had chanced to hear it sung at home by their fathers 
or grandfathers, and that those few had only practised it 
once or twice together and in private, from mere curi- 
osity to ascertain how so celebrated a piece of musical 
antiquity would sound. 

" O, if there are four or five," replied Mr. Forehead, 
(the name of my lofty new acquaintance,) " who know 
anything of Old Hundred, by all means let us have it. 
I beg it, sir, as a particular favor, and will give you my 
reasons for the request after service." 

My prevailing disposition to oblige, and the great 
quantity of time already consumed in our conversation, 
imposed upon me now the necessity of pronouncing 
aloud, as was usual just before beginning to sing, the 
name of this venerable air. No sooner had the word 
proceeded from my mouth, than there appeared to be a 
motion of keen curiosity among the congregation below, 
but in the choir around me there reigned the stillness of 
incredulity and surprise. All the elder members of the 
flock, I could observe, looked upwards to the gallery, 
with the gleams of pleasurable expectation in their 
countenances. Of our well-filled orchestra, only eight 
individuals arose, for there were no more among us who 
possessed the least acquaintance with Old Hundred. 
And even three out of that number were as ignorant of 
it as those who continued seated, but ventured to expose 
themselves, trusting to the assistance they might derive 
from the voices of the other performers, and from the 
score of the tune itself, contained in some, though I think 
not in all, of the copies of the Village Harmony which 
were present. 

The psalm was sung with tolerable correctness ; but 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 49 

accompanied with such a fanning on the part of the 
females, who were all sitting, and such a whispering 
among those of the correlative sex who were unem- 
ployed, that I could bode nothing but disturbance and 
unhappiness for a long time to come in our choral circle. 

During the reading of the next psalm, while Mr. Fore- 
head was alarming me with a recommendation to sing 
St. Martin's, four stout acquaintances of my own pressed 
forward and whispered with an earnestness that carried 
the sound over every part of the edifice, " Sing New 
Jerusalem I " New Jerusalem, therefore, I appointed to 
be sung, and thus prevented, as I make no sort of ques- 
tion, more than three quarters of the singers from leaving 
their seats vacant in the afternoon. 

At the close of the morning service, I had the prom- 
ised interview and explanation with my new acquaint- 
ance. It seems that since leaving college he had been 
reading law for a year in an office at one of our seaport 
towns, and while there had occasionally assisted in the 
choir of some congregation, into which had been intro- 
duced a new and purer taste for sacred music than gen- 
erally prevailed through the rest of the country. In that 
choir, as he informed me, no tunes of American origin 
were ever permitted to gain entrance. Fugues there 
were a loathing and detestation. None but the slow, 
grand, and simple airs which our forefathers sang found 
any indulgence. Mr. Forehead assured me that no other 
music w^as worth hearing, and wiiat seemed to weigh 
particularly with him was the circumstance, that the 
slow music in question was beginning to be in the 
fashion. It was under the operation of these ideas that 
he had been so strenuous in forcing upon our choir the 

5 



50 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

performance of Old Hundred and St. Martin's, in defi- 
ance of our helpless ignorance of both of them. 

It appeared to me that his zeal on this point was car- 
rying him too far; I saw in his aims quite as strong 
workings of a conscious superiority in taste and of the 
fastidious arrogance of fashion, as a love for genuine 
and appropriate music. I could not but question, too, 
the propriety of suddenly and violently forcing upon a 
choir and congregation a species of music to which they 
were entirely unaccustomed. It occurred to me, besides, 
that though the most slow and solemn tunes might be 
executed with good effect when sustained by the accom- 
paniment of an organ, yet it was scarcely judicious to 
confine the whole music of a vocal choir entirely or even 
principally to that kind alone. But all these suggestions 
were of no avail in convincing my opponent, and we 
parted with not the kindest opinions and feelings re- 
specting each other. 

In the course of a month, Mr. Forehead's argument, 
persuasion, and example wrought in a large portion of 
the choir a very considerable change of taste on this sub- 
ject. There were some who loved novelty; there were 
others who yielded to the stranger's assurances respect- 
ing the fashionableness of the thing; and there was a 
third description, who were really convinced of the better 
adaptation of the ancient tunes to the purposes of wor- 
ship, and had a taste to enjoy their solemn and beautiful 
strains. All these classes composed perhaps about a 
moiety of the choir, and were eager for the introduction 
of the good old music. The other half were extremely 
obstinate and almost bigoted in their opposition to this 
measure, and in their attachment to the existing cata- 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 51 

• 

logue of tunes. Disputes now ran high amongst us. 
Most of us took sides on the question with an inexcusa- 
ble warmth, and without any attempt at compromise. 

I know of nothing more unconquerable and spiteful 
than the bickerings of a divided choir while they last. 
In addition to all the ordinary exacerbations of party 
spirit, there is a most unpardonable offence committed 
by each side in suspecting the good taste of the other. 
Thus vanity is wounded to its deepest core, and con- 
science and conviction are fretted into a fierce perse- 
verance, which is not at all diminished by the circum- 
stance, that the parties must sit, act, and sing in the 
closest contact, and almost breathe into each other's 
faces. 

In the midst of this unhappy musical commotion, 
there was one individual who had the good fortune to 
remain thus far entirely neuter. It was, reader, the 
humble historian of these transactions, — the afflicted 
leader of that agitated band. I had long wished, to- 
gether with my friend Charles Williams, that a better 
style of music might prevail among us. But we felt 
that w^e had neither skill nor authority to effect the ex- 
change. If the tares should be torn up, we knew that 
the wheat would be liable to come with them. My pri- 
vate opinion, as well as general disposition, led me, there- 
fore, to be as quiescent as possible amid the difficulties 
now existing. I did not, as I believe, escape all censure 
from either party, but I received no bitter treatment from 
any one. Due deference and acknowledgment still con- 
tinued for some time to be paid me as leader, except 
perhaps from the pragmatical stranger. But no efforts 
or prudence on my part could prevent the explosion 
which was ultimately to ensue. 



52 THE VILLAGE CHOIP. 

When it was found that Mr. Forehead had sufficient 
influence to introduce a few of his favorite tunes on the 
settled and customary catalogue, and that the matter 
had proceeded to something more than a simple experi- 
ment, the admirers of fugues looked upon themselves as 
a beaten party, and took occasion, when two of the ob- 
noxious airs had happened to be given out by me on one 
Sunday morning, to absent themselves altogether from 
worship in the afternoon. My feelings in this predica- 
ment are not to be described. I regarded myself as a 
principal cause of this deplorable feud, and lamented 
that I had not had sufficient strength of mind to resist 
the encroachments of the active gentleman at my left 
hand. But the standard was now raised, and war was 
declared. I felt that it would be ignominious to quit 
my post. I gave up for a time my arguments with Mr. 
Forehead on the propriety of singing slow tunes alto- 
gether. No attempts were made to effect a reconcilia- 
tion and return of the absenting party. It was resolved 
among those who remained behind, to perform no other 
music than such as we deemed the most genuine, and 
an express was sent off by the first opportunity to pur- 
chase thirty copies of the lately published ******* Col- 
lection. 

In the mean time, however, the controversy had de- 
scended to the congregation. As long as the choir had 
kept together on terms of seeming decency, it was hardly 
to be expected that the audience at large would take 
part in our little animosities. The parish would never 
have undertaken to control a whole choir, if that choir 
would have united in any species of music, however con- 
trary to the tastes and habits of those who bore no share 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 53 

in its performance. But when it was found that our 
little vocal commonwealth had been rent asunder, and 
that so large a division of rnalecontents had retired in 
indignation to a Sacred Mount, the sympathies of broth- 
ers, sisters, parents, and friends were at once excited, 
and musical predilections were enlisted along with the 
ties of nature to swell the threatening dissatisfaction. 
For several Sundays I remained firm, supported as I 
was by all the ostentatious influence and patronage of 
Mr. Forehead, and the zealous co-operation of his par- 
tisans. We persisted every Sabbath in singing these 
five tunes. Old Hundred, St. Martin's, Mear, Bath, and 
Little Marlborough, unless the minister varied his metres 
from that standard ; and even then we were prepared with 
tunes of a similar class. By these means we hoped to 
awaken a better taste among those of the congregation 
who were averse to our new style, and eventually to re- 
call a majority of the dissidents, who we trusted would 
become convinced of the excellence of our improvements, 
and gradually return to partake of the honor and pleasure 
attached to them. 

But our expectations were disappointed. Our triumph 
had a date of only about three months, and was even 
waning while it lasted. We could not force the likings 
of a prejudiced, and, in some respects, exasperated con- 
gregation. The singing in the meeting-house was the 
constant topic of every private conversation. All possi- 
ble ridicule and contempt were thrown out against each 
of the respective styles in question. All sorts of argu- 
ments were used, that reason, or passion, or prejudice, 
could devise. Till at length, I verily believe, our incli- 
nations became so perverted by the mere operation of 

5* 



54 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

party feeling, that many of us hated and despised the 
venerable air of Old Hundred with as much heartiness 
as they did the toad that crossed their path at twilight, 
while others regarded the generally very innocent tune of 
Northfield with the same abhorrence that we bestowed 
on a snake. Unfortunately for the better side of the ar- 
gument at this time, the attachment to a rapid, fuguing, 
animated style of singing was too deeply and exten- 
sively seated in the affections of the people of Water- 
field, to be eradicated by the impotent perseverance of 
our diminished choir. Pew after pew became deserted, 
until we found that we were singing, and Mr. Welby 
preaching, to almost naked walls. The hoary head was 
still there, for it loved to listen to the strains which had 
nourished the piety of its youth. A few families of 
fashionable pretensions encouraged us, for there was 
something aristocratical in the superior taste of our 
newly introduced music, and something modish in its 
reputation. Nothing but the strongest religious feelings 
induced a few other scattered individuals to appear at 
meeting, and it was but too evident that full three quar- 
ters of the usual attendants remained at home. 

This spectacle produced the deepest effect on my 
mind. I had a sufficient sense of the blessings of public 
worship to feel and know that they must not be sacri- 
ficed to a mere point of musical taste. I was therefore 
perfectly willing to resign all my biases for the sake of 
seeing our beloved meeting-house again filled with its 
motley throngs, and of feeling the delicious, though per- 
haps imaginary, coolness excited by the agitations of 
several hundred fans, — those busy little agents, so lively, 
so glancing, yet so silent, — and of hearing the full thun- 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 55 

der of all the seats as they were slammed down after 
prayer, though Mr. Welby had frequently remonstrated 
with earnestness against it, — but, much to my satisfac- 
tion, remonstrated in vain, for I scarcely know many 
sounds more grateful to my ear than this. Whether it 
is, that it is connected with the idea of a full congre- 
gation, which I always loved, or with the close of the 
prayer, which in early youth I thought insufferably long, 
or whether it was originally a most agreeable diversifi- 
cation of the inaction and monotony of church hours, I 
cannot tell ; but something has w^onderfully attached me 
to the noise of a thousand falling seats. And this at- 
tachment you will find very general in New England. 
Many a minister there will tell you that his attempts to 
correct the supposed evil have always been ineffectual ; 
and if you are riding through the land on a summer 
Sabbath, you may observe that, long before you are in 
sight of the meeting-house, your starting horse and 
saluted ear will give decided testimony to the clergy- 
man's complaint, while all the wakened echoes round will 
inform you that, if you spur forward for a half-mile or 
more, you will be in season to hear a good portion of the 
sermon, though you have lost the prayer.* 

^ This passage must indeed be regarded as a record of times and habits 
that have past. For not only has the nuisance of doAvn-slamming seats 
been replaced by more quiet and decorous fixtures, but the very posture of 
the worshippers in prayer has been almost universally exchanged from a 
standing to a sitting one. Few instances of a change of manners in the 
course of a single generation are more remarkable than this. Had it been 
predicted, in the time of the author's youth, that in thirty or forty years a 
majority of the congregations in New England would sit during prayer, and 
that too with the cordial assent of the clergymen and the most pious among 
their hearers, the prediction would have been received with a smile, if not a 



56 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

I was unable any longer to endure the destitute ap- 
pearance of the meeting-house, and having consulted 
with Mr. Wei by, who advised me to make whatever 
sacrifices I could for the restoration of peace, I caused it 
to be circulated one day in the village, that on the fol- 
lowing Sabbath I should return to the kind of music 
which had lately been abandoned. The necessity for 
this measure was the more pressing, as I heard it mur- 
mured that a town-meeting was soon to be called for the 
purpose of securing a mode of singing which should be 
agreeable to a great majority of the parish. 

My present associates and supporters, indeed, almost 
to a man, took umbrage at my determination ; and were 
not seen in public when the Sabbath came. But I was 
surrounded by all the choristers of the other party, and 
the meeting-house was crowded, and the down-falling 
seats rebellowed again to my delighted ear. 

And now for several weeks was the full-breathing 
triumph of the lovers of crotchets and quavers over the 
votaries of minims and semibreves. The latter faction 
sullenly absented themselves from the singing-pew, and 
generally from worship, while the former revelled amid 
the labyrinths of fugues, believing, to their own happi- 
ness, certainly, the order of consecutive parts to be the 
sweetest of melodies, and the recurrence of consecutive 
fifths the most delightful of harmonies. In place of the 
list of ancient tunes above enumerated, were now sub- 



shudder of incredulous horror. If believed, it would have been considered 
as indicative of an approaching and lamentable decline of piety. The facil- 
ity with which the change has taken place, wears an encouraging aspect for 
the lovers of reform, who may be anxiously awaiting far more important 
movements in society. 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 57 

stituted Russia, Northfield, the Forty-Sixth Psalm, New- 
Jerusalem, and others of the same mint. The name of 
Billings was a sufficient passport of recommendation to 
any air that was mentioned, while that of Williams or 
of Tansur was sure to condemn it to neglect. We were 
encouraged by the looks and voices of all those members 
of the congregation who w^ere beneath fifty years of age ; 
or if any such declined to accompany us either with a 
hum or an articulated modulation, they perhaps testified 
their satisfaction by the visible beating of a hand, whose 
arm lay along the top of a pew. 

But this was to me only a silver age, compared with 
the golden reign of Charles Williams. I felt that my 
taste had become much confirmed and purified by my 
recent study and practice of a better style of church 
music, and I could therefore the less easily tolerate that 
which I was compelled now to support. By far the bet- 
ter half of the choir, also, in point of musical skill and 
execution, refrained from renewing their services, and I 
w^as distressed to know what methods I could adopt to 
allure them back. Even my rival and annoyer, Mr. 
Forehead, I should have been glad to welcome again at 
my left hand. His voice had both power and sweetness, 
and perhaps the only defect in his mode of performing 
was his perpetual attempt at ornament and trilling, a 
defect still further enhanced by the circumstance, that, 
instead of trilling with his tongue, he always attempted 
that accomplishment with his lips alone, being the veri- 
table original by whom the well-known unhappy change 
was made upon the word bow in the following distich : 

" With reverence let the saints appear, 
And bow before the Lord." 



58 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

Nevertheless, I was perfectly willing and desirous to 
enter into a negotiation with him and his party, for the 
purpose of procuring, if possible, some mutual compro- 
mise and reconciliation, and filling up again the comple- 
ment of the choir. 

But this was an attempt of no little delicacy and dif- 
ficulty. The exasperation of both parties was too recent 
and too sore, immediately to admit of an amicable per- 
sonal union, or to allow the expectation that either side 
would endure the favorite music of the other. Time, 
however, which effects such mighty revolutions in the 
affairs of empires, condescends also to work the most 
important changes in the aspect of humble villages, and 
still humbler choirs. 

It is the office of this unpretending narrative to record 
the mutations to which one of the last-mentioned com- 
munities is exposed in New England. Whether the 
train of incidents here exhibited be a specimen of what 
occurs to many other choirs within the same region, my 
experience does not enable me to decide. Many of my 
readers, however, will probably recognize, in these me- 
moirs of a single collection of singers, several features 
common to all others. 

I have often thought that such communities are a kind 
of arena for the exhibition of some peculiar and specific 
human infirmities. Every new combination of our social 
nature, indeed, seems to produce some new results, in 
the same manner as each species of vegetables nourishes 
its peculiar tribe of animalcules. I take it that our Na- 
tional Congress elicits from its component members cer- 
tain specific virtues and vices, and certain modifications 
of feeling, passion, and talent, denied to us mere readers 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 59 

of newspapers at home. Where but on the floor of the 
American Capitol would the peculiarities of a certain 
member's sarcasm, and of another member's sublime 
statesmanship, be generated and developed?* So in a 
church choir, there somehow arise certain shades of freaks, 
certain starts of passion, certain species of whim, certain 
modes of folly, and let me humbly suggest, also, certain 
descriptions of virtue, to be found exactly in no other 
specimens throughout the moral kingdom of man. 

May I fondly hope, that these desultory delineations, 
intermingled though they are with intrusive speculations, 
and superficial efforts at philosophizing, may at least 
prove, corrective of kindred effects, if such anyw^here 
exist, with those which are here exposed? A mirror 
sometimes shocks the child out of a passion of whose 
deformity he could not be convinced except by its dis- 
gusting effects on his own face. And if the perusal of 
these pages, which have been too carelessly thrown to- 
gether, in order to indulge some juvenile recollections, 
and to soothe some painful, heavy hours, be instru- 
mental in correcting any imperfections to which our 
church choirs are liable, I shall feel more than repaid for 
my anxiety in undertaking the perilous enterprise of au- 
thorship. But let us be moving forward. 

In a very few months, negotiations were entered into 
with the body of the other party, of whom some half- 
dozen individuals of the least zealous had from time to 
time returned, and given in their adhesion to the ruling 
powers. The truth was, that, on our part, we felt ex- 

* These allusions to Randolph and Webster were perhaps more readily 
perceived at the first publication of the work, than they may be at this dis- 
tance of time. 



60 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

tremely the want of instrumental music, and a few ex- 
cellent voices on the treble. After Charles Williams 
had left us, a tolerable bass-viol was played by an elder- 
ly storekeeper, a bachelor, who had formerly assisted the 
choir for several years with that instrument, but had re- 
signed it as soon as Charles became prepared to supply 
his place. This gentleman with his clerk, who played a 
fine flute, had participated in the dudgeon of the lovers 
of ancient melody. But nearly all of them now wished 
to return, conscious, undoubtedly, of the improvement 
which it was truly in their power to contribute to our 
performances, and unwilling that their talents should 
any longer be hidden in a napkin. 

The terms of reconciliation and reunion were settled 
in the following manner. As our performances were 
required regularly five times on a Sabbath, it was agreed 
that the arrangement of tunes throughout the day should 
be two fugues, two of the slow ancient airs, and one of 
a different description from either. Neither party could 
well object to airs of a rapid and animated movement, 
in which all the parts continued uninterruptedly to the 
close, as is the case with Wells, Windham, Virginia, 
and many others. Another class of tunes also were 
very general favorites, though they avoided both ex- 
tremes that were the bones of contention among us. I 
allude to those in which the third line is a duet between 
the bass and treble, of which St. Sebastian's is a well- 
known beautiful instance. 

For some time, we proceeded together in this new 
arrangement with as little interruption as could be well 
expected from existing circumstances. A very few of 
the most obstinate and paltry-minded, of each side, held 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 61 

out, indeed, for longer or shorter periods, and one or two 
perhaps never returned till a grand revolution of the 
whole corps, to be described hereafter, should our his- 
tory ever reach a second part. For several Sundays, 
also, four or five Guelphs would contemptuously sit in 
perfect silence during the singing of the Ghibeline tunes, 
and as many Ghibelines would return the compliment 
during the singing of the Guelph tunes. And even 
when they were compelled to abandon such indecent 
deportment by the censures to which it exposed them, 
to my certain knowledge they were silent while stand- 
ing up with the choir, or moved their lips in a whisper, 
or sang so very low as to give no sort of assistance to 
the rest. 

However, these little factious symptoms gradually 
disappeared, and I had at length the happiness of find- 
ing myself at the head of my musical flock, with the 
embers of former grievances well-nigh asleep, and with 
a decided advantage gained in our taste and selection 
of tunes. But what struggles and dangers had been in- 
curred in order to arrive at this improved condition ! I 
can resort to no illustration of these events more apt 
than the kingdom of France, which, as some imagine, 
derives a faint compensation for the horrors of the revo- 
lution, from the amendments effected in some of its 
circumstances and institutions, that neither despotism 
nor superstition can in future hope to wipe away. 

Yet, amidst these various concussions, it will not be 
surprising that my own authority should have been com- 
pletely undermined. It is scarce supposable that I could 
be a very decided favorite with either of the parties who 
had frowned so awfully upon each other, since I had in 



62 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

a manner sided with both of them. Although, therefore, 
I was most scrupulously impartial in selecting such de- 
scriptions of tunes as exactly conformed to the terms of 
the treaty, yet there was not a member of the choir 
whose friendship was sufficiently zealous to join me in re- 
sisting the new encroachments of Mr. Forehead. While 
that gentleman confined himself to a general selection 
equally impartial with mine, not a spectator thought of 
murmuring, when he suggested, as he constantly did, 
this and that particular tune for any given psalm or 
hymn ; and suggested it, too, with such an air of certain- 
ty and confidence, that I was not the man to hold up 
my head, and say at a single glance, " Sir, I am on my 
own ground here." When he found that his sugges- 
tions were in this way constantly adopted, it was an 
easy and natural transition for him next to whisper 
round of his own accord, to the few who sat near him, 
the name of the tune to be sung, and to whisper it also 
to me with the same nonchalance, that I might proclaim 
it to the choir as usual. And then, with as much ease 
and as calm a face as Napoleon wore when he stepped 
from the consular chair to the imperial throne, it only 
remained for him to assume the precentorship at once, 
by uttering aloud one Sunday, to my amazement, the 
name of the first tune in the morning, and continuing 
the practice from that moment until his departure from 
the choir and the neighborhood. 

Thus, my own occupation was gone. On the after- 
noon of the morning just mentioned, I entered the sing- 
ing-pew and took my seat at some distance from the 
post of honor, which I felt was no longer mine. It was 
of no use to appeal to the members of the choir in my 



4 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 63 

defence. I had suffered encroachment after encroach- 
ment to be gradually made upon my authority, until the 
last act of usurpation was scarcely perceptible. I knew 
that I could have no enthusiastic supporters of my 
rights. I had not one personal qualification by which to 
balance the imposing and overbearing accomplishments 
of my competitor. I dare say all the choir and all the 
congregation thought him the best leader, as I confess, 
on the whole, he was. Probably the precise circum- 
stances under which the exchange was made were not 
discerned by many among them. Perhaps they might 
have supposed, that my resignation and transfer of the 
pitch-pipe were voluntary. Indeed, I half hope they did 
suppose so. But no, — I am willing they should have 
known the whole truth. But let the matter rest. It is 
an era in my biography which I do not like to contem- 
plate. 

I am not ashamed, however, that I continued in the 
choir. I am certain it was not meanness which kept 
me there, though some at first sight may so interpret it. 
It was a struggle between pride and duty, in which duty 
won the victory, — and though pride had indignation 
for its ally, yet my devoted and disinterested love for 
those singing-seats came up to the assistance of duty, 
and decided the contest. 

Besides, why should I desert those seats ? Should I 
have felt happier, could I have concealed my morti- 
fication better, by sitting with the family below? By 
no means. I might as well remain where I was, and bury 
my feelings in the flood of sound with which my own 
tremulous voice was mingled. 

For I considered, that it was always my peculiar lot, 



64 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

wherever I was, and whatever I did, to have some mor- 
tification or other on my hands, or, I would say, on my 
heart. The squeak of my clarionet was but an epitome 
of a certain note that has occasionally grated the whole 
tenor of my fortune and life. I had a disaffected mother- 
in-law. My schoolmaster was partial tq my rival. I 
was bound an apprentice to an uncongenial employ- 
ment, which I could not abandon until I was free. I 
was once jilted. How I was superseded in the choir, 
has been seen above. I always try to do my best, but am 
liable to overdo. I have been disinterested and generous 
to my friends, till I have spoiled them, and they have 
sometimes become my foes from expecting more than I 
could or ought to perform. The same out-of-the-way 
note, I acknowledge, attaches itself to most of my com- 
positions. I have written some things in these very 
pages of a kin with that portentous strain of my instru- 
ment; but I could not help it; and I expect that, with 
some praises that may be vouchsafed to this pro- 
duction, other things will be said of it that will cut 
me to the very heart. But I will try to be prepared for 
them. 

And now, reader, you may in some measure under- 
stand how I could endure to haunt, like a ghost, the 
scene of my former triumphs. Kemember, however, that 
I met no scorn on the occasion. Not a soul was there, 
who would not have regretted my absence. A gentle 
and quiet exchange of leaders had been effected, and 
there the matter rested in every mind. The most di- 
rect way by which I could have caused it to redound 
to my ill-reputation and discomfort would have been 
to make a stir about it. Prudence, therefore, if noth- 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 65 

ing else, might whisper to me the proper course to be 
pursued. 

Thus a fifth leader of the choir at Waterfield is duly 
and regularly recorded on these veracious armals. His 
reign, like that of his predecessor, was stormy and un- 
fortunate. For some weeks, Mr. Forehead adhered in- 
violably to the articles of union touching the selection of 
particular kinds of music. But it is the natural ten- 
dency of usurped power, when thus easily acquired, 
to produce security, audacity, encroachment, downfall. 
The precentor's partialities at length began to burst out, 
and occasional small violations of the treaty were hazard- 
ed with impunity. But when he attempted to advance 
farther, and one whole Sunday passed without the as- 
signment of a single fugue to wake up the indifferent 
congregation, an alarm was taken by the lovers of that 
species of melody. A repetition of former disturbances 
and irritations was threatened. Some of the choir took 
no part in the performance ; some absolutely left the 
seats for neighboring pews, and a convulsion was on the 
eve of again breaking us in pieces. 

The amiable Mr. Welby perceived the indications of 
an approaching storm. He devoted himself, therefore, 
the ensuing week, to the preparation of a discourse, 
which he hoped might check the evil in its commence- 
ment. Meanwhile, however, the difficulty was provided 
for in another way. A deputation had called on the 
existing leader that very evening, and, making the 
strongest representations of the dissatisfaction which 
would certainly prevail, if he should continue the course 
of administration to which he was inclined, extorted 
from him a promise that he would immediately return 

6* 



66 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

to the recent arrangement which had so well secured the 
harmony of the choir, and the complacency of the con- 
gregation. 

Bat Mr. Welby knew nothing of the happy turn that 
affairs had thus assumed, and the members of the choir, 
on their part, knew nothing of the benevolent officious- 
ness that was prompting the labors of his study. Even 
had he been aware that a reconciliation had taken place, 
it is probable that he would still have interwoven into 
his next discourse some gentle persuasives to mutual 
kindness. His utter ignorance, however, of that happy 
occurrence, caused his sermon in some places to wear 
an aspect of unnecessary pointedness and severity. Al- 
though it contained but one explicit allusion to the 
choir, yet it unfortunately was calculated with exquisite 
skill to meet precisely such a state of excitement as 
there was every reason to suppose the singers would by 
this time be wrought up to. But what was meant for 
exhortation, was now felt as reproach ; the more tender 
and soothing the preacher's language, the more it seemed 
like oil descending on the flames. The whole choir had 
come together that morning in a state of jealous irrita- 
bility; they were ready to break out somewhere; the 
terms of the last Sunday evening's engagement guarded 
them from waging battle with each other; the one party 
were moody and disappointed, the other felt injured and 
suspicious ; " and now to be held up to the congrega- 
tion, — to be found fault with by the minister, — to be 
chidden just at the moment when they were all en- 
deavoring to keep peace together ! " Such were the 
exaggerated and unjust reflections excited in their minds 
by one of the mildest and most beautiful discourses on 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 67 

brotherly love that were ever composed, and in which, as 
I before observed, only one direct allusion was made to 
them, wherein the preacher expressed his trust, that 
they who gladdened the house of God with the har- 
mony of their voices would be particularly careful to 
cultivate the much sweeter, and, to the ear of Heaven, 
the much more acceptable harmony, resulting from a 
union of pious hearts. 

But no matter; it gave to those prejudiced and ca- 
pricious choristers an object on which to exercise their 
characteristic waywardness, and an opportunity to make 
themselves of some troublesome importance. Accord- 
ingly, to wreak a glorious revenge on the interfering par- 
son, and to impress on the whole world a sense of their 
immeasurable consequence, not a soul of them on the 
afternoon of that day appeared in the singing-seats, — 
with the exception, let me humbly add, of one^ as un- 
worthy indeed as the rest, but who would never for such 
a provocation have deserted that gallery until the imita- 
tion-marble columns that supported it were crumbling 
into ruins. "Whatever others might have thought of me, 
however poor-spirited and grandmother-loving I may 
have appeared, yet if there have been any moments in 
my life of loftier triumph, but at the same time of more 
piteous melancholy, than others, they assuredly occurred 
during the quarter of an hour when I sat perfectly alone 
in that deserted singing-pew, fixing my eye and face on 
no other object than my afflicted minister, who was 
waiting in trembling dismay for the entrance of the rest 
of the choir. 

, Never shall I forget the moment when the dreadful 
truth flashed into his mind, and he perceived, by their 



68 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

protracted absence, the mistake that he must have com- 
mitted in the morning. Yet it was but an instant of 
agony, and was succeeded by a high-souled though in- 
voluntary look of calmness, and consciousness that he 
had discharged no more than a well-meant religious and 
professional duty. The tears were soon wiped away 
from his face, a decent composure was assumed, a hymn 
was quickly selected, which Watts, the sweet psalmist 
of the modern Israel, could furnish him most appropri- 
ately for the occasion, and was then announced and read 
with a tremulousness of voice, that indicated rather a 
successful effort of firmness, than any yielding weakness 
of heart. 

I had the honor, on that occasion, of setting and lead- 
ing a tune, which was accompanied by Mr. Welby's 
modest, though perfect and full-toned bass. We were 
the only singers for the remainder of that day. The 
hearts of some among the worshippers were too full, 
and of others too anxious, to lend us a helping note. 
From that moment, the closest friendship was formed 
and cemented between Mr. Welby and myself, and it 
was but lately that I paid him the last dollar of the 
money which he liberally advanced to defray more than 
half the expenses of my college education. 

I was " monarch of all I surveyed " in that singing- 
pew for four months. Mr. Welby of course had no 
apology to make. Apology indeed ! He was in truth 
the only injured party. Had the whole choir entered 
the meeting-house on their knees, singing Peccavimus 
and Miserere^ they would, by such humiliation, have 
scarcely effaced their violation of sacred proprieties and 
of the feelings of their pastor. Should Mr. Welby's 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. f9 

Journal of his Ministry, which I know he has copiously 
recorded, be ever given to the world, I have not a doubt 
that this transaction will be stated there with ample jus- 
tice and candor, and make no insignificant appearance 
among the various trials which a New England clergy- 
man is called to endure. 

It was long ere a sense of lingering compunction, to- 
gether with various other feelings and circumstances, 
brought the wanderers back to their deserted fold. Mean- 
while I continued the discharge of my solitary duty in 
the gallery, and was most minutely scrupulous in select- 
ing the tunes according to the arrangement prescribed 
amidst the recent troubles. I was determined to give to 
no person whatever the slightest cause of offence, but to 
hold out every encouragement for all who chose to re- 
turn. Mr. Welby and myself derived occasional assist- 
ance from a few voices below, but often the whole mu- 
sical duties of worship devolved upon us alone. Few 
indeed of. the members of the late choir carried their 
animosity so far as to renounce attendance at church 
altogether. Mr. Forehead, I think, was never seen in 
that meeting-house but once again. Soon after his 
abrupt retirement from the seats, he married and left 
the neighborhood, carrying off with him one of the best 
treble voices in the village. 

At the beginning of the following winter, I was com- 
pelled to fulfil an engagement that I had incurred, to 
keep a district-school for three months in the county of 
Rockingham, New Hampshire. Soon after I had taken 
my departure for this purpose, Mr. Welby was seized 
with a troublesome affection of his lungs, which scarcely 
permitted him to perform even his strictly pastoral ser- 



70 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

vices. And now the musical tide in my native congre- 
gation was at its very lowest ebb. For two or three 
Sundays the minister did not even presume to read a 
psalm, certain that no one present would rise and sing 
it. Can my readers imagine from what quarter relief 
was derived in this gloomy state of things ? From none 
other than a few of the very oldest members of the con- 
gregation. Four ancient men, the least of whose ages 
was seventy-three, indignant at the folly and pertinacity 
of those singers of yesterday, and wearied out with wait- 
ing for a return of tolerable music, tottered up the stairs 
one Sabbath morning with the assistance of the panelled 
railing, and took their places in the seats left vacant by 
their degenerate grandsons. Two of them had fought 
in the old French war, and all had taken a civil or mili- 
tary part, more or less conspicuous, in the struggle for 
our country's independence. One, indeed, bore a title of 
considerable military rank. His hair was as white as the 
falling snow; the other three displayed white or -gray wigs, 
with a large circular bush, mantling over the upper part 
of the back, like a swelling cloud round the shoulders 
of old Wachusett. Their voices of course were broken 
and tremulous, but not destitute of a certain grave and 
venerable sweetness. They kept the most perfect time, 
as they stood in a row, fronting the minister, with their 
hands each holding a lower corner of their books, which 
they waved from side to side in a manner the most 
solemn and imposing. Their very pronunciation had in 
it something primitive and awe-inspiring. Their shall 
broadened into shawl^ do was exchanged for doe, and 
earth for airlh. Their selection of tunes was of the 
most ancient composition and slowest movement, with 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 71 

the exception, occasionally, of old Sherburne, and the 
Thirty-Fourth Psalm. 

How vividly do I remember the spectacle which they 
presented to my revering eyes, when I attended the 
meeting-house late one morning, after having walked 
on snow-shoes the last five miles of the distance from 
the place where I was employed in teaching, to pay a 
short visit to my friends. On entering the beloved edi- 
fice, whose white, though bell-less steeple I had for some 
time gazed on from afar with emotions almost as strong 
as if I had been absent several years, it was my purpose 
to ascend immediately to my usual station. But before 
I had passed the door, unexpected and unaccustomed 
sounds for that place burst upon my ears, and my curi- 
osity irresistibly led me forward to my father's pew near 
the pulpit, that I might have a full view of the strange 
choir which had so magically sprung up during my short 
absence, and that I might not disturb it by my unneces- 
sary intrusion. 

This was not the first nor the last time that I have 
witnessed extraordinary energy of character, as occasions 
called for it, displayed by octogenarians of New England. 
Few of my readers, perhaps, will fail to remember in- 
stances analogous to that here recorded. Those appar- 
ently decrepit forms, which you see at frame-raisings, 
confined to the easy task of fashioning the pins, and 
telling stories of the Revolution, or about the door in 
winter, mending the sled and gathering sticks for the 
fire, or drawing the rake in summer after the moving 
hay-cart, occasionally surprise you by the exhibition of 
an activity and strength which you would think they 
must have for ever resigned. Who can tell how much 



72 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

this latent vigor of theirs may be owing to our bracing 
climate, joined to the effects of their former stirring life, 
and particularly to the influence of those preternatural 
exertions, which they, with the whole country, once put 
forth in the war of independence ? I thought I distinctly 
saw, in the efforts of those seniors of my native parish 
to supply it with sacred music, something of that spirit 
which had sprung to arms, when the necessities of their 
country and the voice of Heaven bade them forego 
every personal convenience, and take up their march to 
Charlestown, to Cambridge, and to the heights of Dor- 
chester. Ye laurelled old men! ye saviours of your 
country, and authors of unimaginable blessings for your 
posterity! ye shall not descend to your graves, without 
the fervent thanks, the feeble tribute, of one who often in 
his thought refers his political enjoyments and hopes to 
your principle, your valor, and your blood ! 

How soon will it be ere a Revolutionary veteran will 
be seen no more among us! It is with a feeling of mel- 
ancholy and desolation that I perceive their number ir- 
revocably lessening every year. We do not half enough 
load the survivors with grateful honors.* We ought 
formally and publicly to cherish them with more pious 
assiduity. Their pensions are an insufficient recompense 
of their merits, for the plain reason that they scarcely 
fought for mercenary considerations. Even those who 
expected pay, and sometimes could not obtain it from 
the continental treasury, would have died rather than 
touch the gold of the enemy. On the anniversaries of 



* This paragraph, as well as the whole book, was written a year before 
the Bunker Hill Monument Celebration. 



THE VILLAGE CHOIK. 



our independence, I would therefore assign to all who 
had any share in accomplishing the Revolution, a dis- 
tinct place in our civic processions. The orator of the 
day should add interest to his performance by an ad- 
dress to their venerable corps. They should be escorted 
to the festive hall, they should be entertained as honored 
guests, they should be toasted, and the toast should be 
drunk standing, and the chaplain of the day should offer 
prayers for their long and uninterrupted happiness, both 
in this world and in the next.* 

But this last idea brings me round again to the rever- 
end choir, on which was fastened the other end of my 
chain of patriotic reflections. Those of my readers who 
are interested as much in the links of a dynasty as in the 
more general facts of a history, may wish to know who 
was regarded as the leader among that group of an- 
tiques. And the question is pertinent enough. For al- 
though they were too far advanced in years beyond the 
miserable vanities of musical pretension, and were now 
too much on a level in point of abilities or skill, to be 
actuated by any aspiring ambition, yet they had also 
too much experience in the affairs of life not to be aware 
of the necessity of some ostensible head, in order to man- 
age even the humblest common concern with requisite 
harmony and effect. The person, therefore, whom, rather 
by a tacit, reciprocal understanding than any formal 
nomination or elective acclamation, they made choice 
of for their conductor, was Colonel John Wilkins, oth- 
erwise called Colonel John Ticonderoga, the veteran 



* Many of the propositions here presented have since been singularly- 
realized in various public celebrations throughout the United States. 



74 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

whose hoary locks were above described, and who had 
been the first to suggest to the others this laudable 
scheme. Let those who take pride in such humble mat- 
ters as dates and names remember him, therefore, as the 
sixth leader of the choir at Waterfield, whose acts are 
recorded in this faithful chronicle. 

My engagement in New Hampshire having expired, 
I returned home to pursue my studies. Affairs had, by 
this time, assumed a much brighter aspect. I found, on 
my arrival, that nearly all the females belonging to the 
late choir had volunteered a renewal of their delightful 
services. How difficult it is for w^oman to persevere in 
error! Though, physically speaking, the weaker party, 
yet how often she resists the sinister example of the 
other sex, and proves herself superior in the strength of 
her moral powers ! The fair ones of my native parish 
were the first to perceive the unhappy mistake into 
which they had been betrayed, and the first to acknowl- 
edge and practically retract it. Candor requires me to 
make these statements and reflections, though it were 
much to be wished that the occasion for it never had 
existed. But I was willing to forget all the resentment 
with which I had before wondered at their conduct, 
when I contemplated the novel and beautiful spectacle 
that now charmed my imagination. Show me a more 
interesting picture than reverend and trembling age as- 
sociated with blooming and youthful beauty in chant- 
ing the praises of their common Creator. It struck me 
as an instance of a kind of moral counterpoint^ more 
thrilling to the soul than the sweetest or the grand- 
est harmony of mere sound. Willingly would I have 
refrained from interposing my indifferent voice, had 



THE VILLAGE CHOIK. 75 

not duty and persuasion united to reconduct me to the 
seats. 

The experience of life certainly brings every man into 
strange combinations and juxtapositions with his fellow- 
beings. Yet, was not mine at the present time rather 
peculiar? What fate, what hidden sympathy, what 
kindred gravity of character, drew me into special per- 
sonal contact and co-operation with four of the most 
reverend seniors of the land? The contemplation of 
this new attitude of my presiding genius had some- 
times almost too powerful an effect on my imagination. 
1 began to entertain doubts of my own age. At times I 
thought it my duty to study a new system of ethics and 
manners, corresponding to my situation. I wished oc- 
casionally that Cicero's Treatise on Old Age might be 
substituted in place of his Orations against Catiline, 
which I was then reading, as preparatory to my admis- 
sion into college. 

But the dreams of this whimsical hallucination soon 
fled away, as the months advanced, and Mr. Welby's 
voice regained its usual health and mellowness, and my 
venerated fathers in harmony found it too much for their 
comfort to ascend the stairs on the enfeebling days of 
spring. Besides, if anything could have restrained the 
peculiar wanderings of my mind above described, it was 
the condition in which I was now left. Exposed singly 
to the fire of a whole battery of eyes and voices from 
the flower of the parish, and compelled, by my very 
duty, to maintain constant communications and consul- 
tations with them, I was soon reminded, by certain in- 
describably interesting and perplexing feelings in my 
breast, that I had many years yet to pass before I 



76 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

could aspire to the honors, the abstracted attention, 
and the composure of old age. 

But thoLigh I pretend not to have been exempt from 
the susceptibilities now alluded to, I call on every scru- 
tinizing spectator (there having been several of that 
character at church) to bear witness to the unremitted 
propriety of my deportment during the summer and 
autumn which I passed in that critical situation. No 
manifestation of partialities, no encouragement of female 
frivolities, and no unfeeling neglect or inattention, that I 
have ever heard of or imagined, were or could be laid to 
my charge. Our singing, I may confidently say without 
undue self-flattery, continued to be of no ordinary merit, 
though we could not welcome one accession to my own 
side of the choir. Several strong and rich voices on the 
other side took the tenor or air of each tune, the rest of 
them united in a melodious treble, and Mr. Welby and 
myself put forth our whole vocal powers in supporting 
them with the bass. Such was the uninterrupted method 
we pursued, until the approach of winter again called me 
to a distant place, to replenish my little funds with the 
emoluments of a district schoolmaster. 

The destinies of our choir were now provided for in a 
manner somewhat remarkable, but not, I believe, alto- 
gether unexampled elsewhere in our country. The first 
intention of the ladies was to leave the seats immediately 
after my departure. Had it been executed, everything 
might have been thrown back into the deplorable con- 
dition in which I had left affairs the preceding winter. 
Two of my late venerable fellow-choristers were now 
already gathered to the land of silence, and there were 
no hopes of obtaining a leader from any quarter. In this 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 77 

emergency, Mrs. Martha Shrinknot proffered her services, 
and undertook the management of the whole depart- 
ment, until I should myself return and resume it. She 
was a lady not much past the age of thirty years. Be- 
ing of an active and inquisitive turn of mind, she had 
long since made herself acquainted with the mysteries of 
setting a psalm-tune, knew its key-note at a glance, and 
had frequently, on private occasions, even before her 
marriage, given out the leading tones to the different 
parts, when passing an evening with a few musical 
friends, who preferred extracting an hour of rational 
pleasure from the Village Harmony, to the frivolous 
entertainments of cards, coquetry, and scandal. 

It might be out of place here to follow Mrs. Martha 
Shrinknot home, and exhibit her superintending the 
best-ordered family and the most profitable dairy in 
the county. My concern with her now is in her public 
capacity, and I may say with truth, that a leader of 
more accuracy, more judgment, more self-possession, 
and more spirited energy, never took charge of the 
Waterfield choir, nor, as I think, of any other choir. 

Her outset on the first Sabbath succeeded to admira- 
tion ; and there was every prospect that her reign, though 
short, would be one of uninterrupted brilliancy and fe- 
licity. But an ill star seemed to hover over the spot, 
and new troubles soon arose to disturb the peace and 
crush the hopes of -the lovers of sacred song. 

Among the females of the choir was a young woman 
of much comeliness, modest demeanor, and an unsullied 
character, who had been living in one of the richer fam- 
ilies of the village, under the denomination of help. I 
approve the feeling which has substituted this word for 



78 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

the offensive one of servant. Servant seems to stamp 
an irretrievable character on the person who bears the 
appellation. It is less general and vague than the word 
help. The latter seems to admit into the mind a sense 
of independence and a hope of rising in the world. As 
long as Mirabeau's maxim is true, that names are things, 
let the young heirs of poverty and dependence in free 
America solace themselves with the substantial comfort 
of assuming a title which places them, in imagination at 
least, on a level with their employers, and soothes the 
sting which may now and then fret their bosoms, when 
contemplating the unavoidable inequalities of fortune. 
For alas! not even will this slight change of name se- 
cure them from numerous embarrassments and mortifi- 
cations, as will be seen in the case of Mary Wentworth, 
the intelligent young woman above mentioned. 

The singing-pew for the females contained three long 
benches, rising one above another, and receding from 
the front of the gallery. Mary Wentworth had oc- 
cupied an unassuming seat on the uppermost of these 
benches for about three years. At her first appearance 
there, there had been no little stir among certain of the 
vocal sisterhood ; a few airs were put on, a few whis- 
pers circulated, a few stares directed at the modest 
stranger, and the seats of some of the young ladies 
were vacated for a few succeeding Sabbaths. But 
most of them returned sooner or later, on better reflec- 
tion, or on a reviving desire to bear their part in the 
melodies of the place, and Mary thenceforward was 
scarcely disturbed by any kind of notice whatever. Nev- 
ertheless, her singing was envied by some, and admired 
by all. To say the truth, she had no equal in this parish, 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 79 

and few elsewhere. Her voice was enchanting in its 
tones, and astonishing in its compass. She was a per- 
fect mistress of the art, as far as it can reach perfection 
in the practice of our country choirs. She was fit to 
bear a conspicuous part in an oratorio, and would have 
well repaid any degree of scientific cultivation. 

Mrs. Shrinknot, who knew not, or affected not to 
know, the squeamishness respecting rank that was en- 
tertained by some of the young ladies, took occasion, on 
the afternoon of the second Sabbath succeeding her in- 
duction into office, to exercise her lawful authority, by 
inviting Mary Wentworth down to the front seat, and 
placing her at her own right hand. She wished for the 
support of her voice, and the assistance to be derived 
from occasionally consulting her. 

On the next Sunday, Mrs. Shrinknot was seized with 
an illness which prevented her leaving home. She sent 
for Mary, and, after much persuasion, prevailed upon her 
to go that day and assume the direction of the choir. 

The maiden went early, that she might prepare her- 
self, by time and meditation, with sufiicient self-posses- 
sion, and avoid the flurry of passing by others in order 
to arrive at the post which had been assigned her. She 
had not been seated there long, when she observed two 
young ladies, who had for some years pretty regularly 
attended the choir, entering into a pew below, with the 
rest of their family. This was soon followed by several 
other instances of the same kind, and poor Mary's heart 
began to sink within her. She looked frequently and 
anxiously round, in the hope that some, or at least that 
one individual, would arrive to shield her from the op- 
pression of overwhelming notoriety. In vain ! there had 



80 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

been visitings, and murmurings, and resolutions, through 
the whole of the preceding week, and what with the 
pride of some, who could not endure that a girl at ser- 
vice should aspire to an equality with themselves, — and 
the envy of others, whose ears were pained (as they used 
to say, though in a different sense from my use of the 
word) by the tones of Polly Wentworth's voice, — and 
the indignation of others, that the long-established order 
of sitting should be disturbed, — and the pusillanimity 
of others, who had neither souls nor pretensions large 
enough to be proud, or envious, or angry, but who quiv- 
ered on the pivot, and vibrated to whichever side the 
multitude inclined, — not a bonnet was forthcoming 
to gladden the eyes of that fair and desolate house- 
maid. 

Yet, though a girl of the most modest and unpretend- 
ing character, Mary Wentworth had an energy of soul, 
and a sterling good sense, which enabled her to encoun- 
ter every emergency with composure, and to act accord- 
ing to the demands of the occasion. Mr. Welby, after 
waiting a quarter of an hour beyond the usual time, and 
not knowing himself, poor man, what course he ought to 
pursue, balancing between his fear of hurting the young 
woman's feelings, and his duty as a clergyman, at length 
resolved to commence the services with a psalm, which 
he read, and proceeded to sing to the tenor part of a 
tune, that happened to be the universal favorite of the 
congregation. 

Mary Wentworth rose and joined him in the same 
part. Mr. Welby immediately permitted his voice to 
slide, with a graceful and almost imperceptible transi- 
tion, to the bass, with which he continued to accompany 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 81 

her. The afr was of a slightly pathetic description, and 
accorded well with the state of her heart. To say that 
there was not a little effervescence of republican feeling, 
also, which prompted her on that occasion to put forth 
the whole blazing extent of her musical powers, would 
be to arrogate for the fine creature a sort of angelical 
perfection, and to raise a doubt whether the institu- 
tions for which our fathers bled have communicated 
to every one who moves over the land a sense of in- 
dividual dignity and importance. Yet, although grief 
and resentment were both laboring at her heart, her 
strength of character and her instinctive perception of 
the proprieties of the place, suffered no more of either to 
predominate than was exactly sufficient to infuse into 
her performance that combination of melancholy and 
animation, which is the last golden accomplishment of 
the female voice. 

In fact, she was surprised at the excellence of her 
own singing, and this very surprise constantly stimulated 
her to higher and higher efforts. Her situation and feel- 
ings inspired new powers, of which she was unconscious 
before, and inspiration seemed to create and follow in- 
spiration, like the metaphysical loves in the bosom of 
Anacreon. 

The effect on the audience was prodigious. At first, 
there reigned the silence of astonishment that she could 
summon the confidence to sing. This was very soon 
exchanged for the feeling and the rustling of admira- 
tion. A kind of anguish now seized upon the hearts of 
some of the generous young ladies who had that morn- 
ing left the choir. They were half willing to be back 
again there, if for no other purpose than to drown her 



82 THE VILLAGE CHOIK. 

voice, and dilute the attention so lavishly and improp- 
erly bestowed on a human being in the place of wor- 
ship. 

But the impropriety of this admiration appeared to be 
forgotten by even the gravest and most devout among 
the audience. As Mary and the pastor proceeded from 
verse to verse, one after another of their male listeners 
rose, and turned their faces towards the gallery, so that 
by the time the psalm was concluded, and Mr. Welby 
had laid aside his book, to invite his people, in a low 
and solemn tone, to the worship of God, one half of the 
assembly were already in the posture assumed by Con- 
gregationalists, after the manner of primitive Christians, 
in the hour of public prayer. 

From seeming evil is educed real good. The general 
compassion and admiration excited by the case of Mary 
Wentworth now presented an opportunity which had 
been long desired among the singers of the other sex, to 
return with a good grace to the seats. By going thither 
again ostensibly for the purpose of encouraging and pro- 
tecting a persecuted young woman, they would screen 
themselves from the mortification of appearing to regret 
and retract their former conduct. Accordingly, a depu- 
tation of ten, on the afternoon of this day, resorted to 
the spot in the capacity of harbingers or pioneers. In 
consequence of the continued illness of Mrs. Shrinknot, 
the females generally declined to follow their example, 
entertaining in their minds an insurmountable objection 
against submitting to the substitute whom she had ap- 
pointed, notwithstanding the overflow of popularity that 
was now pouring towards that substitute. Not a lady, 
therefore, was to be seen ascending the stairs in the af- 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 83 

ternoon, with the exception of Mary herself, who came 
and resumed her former long-occupied seat on the most 
retired bench in the singing-pew, from which no entrea- 
ties, or arguments, or considerations, urged by Mrs. 
Shrinknot or others, could ever after induce her to re- 
move. The noble girl saw the hopelessness of contend- 
ing against a host of jealous and restless prejudices, and 
cared for nothing in that place so much as peace and 
good singing. 

Mr. Welby was still obliged to act as precentor dur- 
ing the remainder of the day. The new recruits for the 
vocal service, the sight of whom gladdened his heart, 
felt unequal to the task of executing that function among 
themselves. After he had read the first psalm in the 
afternoon, and they had waited some time for him to 
begin the singing of it, he perceived what was wanting, 
and speedily commenced a tune. He did the same with 
the two other hymns for that day. Mary would instan- 
taneously take the treble, and her companions joined her, 
one after another, according to their power of seizing the 
parts belonging to them. After a few trifling mistakes 
in the bass, which the good ears, however, of those who 
committed them were able immediately to correct, they 
succeeded in making themselves all masters of the air 
before the conclusion of the first verse, and then pro- 
ceeded with tolerable spirit and correctness to the end of 
the hymn. 

On my return home, I had the felicity to find the choir 
in a more flourishing condition than it had enjoyed for a 
long time. About twenty of my own sex occupied the 
octagonal box, and somewhat less than that number 
were induced, by the recovery and presence of Mrs. 



84 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

Shrinknot, and the prudent humility of Mary, to fill the 
two lower seats of the adjoining pew. These were all 
in the best training possible under the management of 
the former powerful lady, who, on receiving the key- 
note from the bachelor-merchant's bass-viol, immediately 
sounded forth the melodious fall of fa, sol, la, fa, and dis- 
tributed the leading notes round to the performers of 
each of the four parts, — that complement being some- 
times effected by an animated counter from the lips of 
Mary Wentworth. 

From this time until the succeeding autumn, when I 
entered college, I discharged the duties of chief singer 
without interruption. It was a smoothly spun and 
brightly dyed portion of the thread of my life. The 
choir was making constant improvements, and receiving 
now and then accessions to its numbers, as was to be 
expected from the exercise of regularity and perseverance 
in the main body. 

Very few occurrences happened to disturb the full cup 
of satisfaction which I was now enjoying in peace and 
gratitude. I cannot, however, omit mentioning one mo- 
mentary dash of bitter, that was casually mingled with 
its sweets. In the middle of Mr. Welby's long prayer, 
one July morning, the composure of the congregation 
was startled by the loud crack of a whip before the meet- 
ing-house. Two or three of the younger members of 
the choir immediately rushed on tiptoe out of the sing- 
ing-seats to the windows, from which they beheld a gig 
and tandem approaching rapidly to the door, and saw a 
pair of gayly dressed gentlemen alight therefrom. In a 
moment after, we heard the confident and conscious 
footsteps of their creaking yellow-top boots ascending 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 85 

the stairs, and on turning my eyes, but not my body, in 
that direction, whom should I behold but my old ac- 
quaintance and competitor, Mr. Forehead, accompanied 
by a gentlemanly-looking friend? They had ridden 
that morning from Boston, where Mr. Forehead was a 
successful attorney of much repute in ***** Alley. They 
both came into the octagonal pew with the same unem- 
barrassed freedom that they would have entered a bar- 
room, and took the first vacant seats in their way ; but 
on reconnoitring, and finding everybody around them in 
a standing posture, they exchanged smiles of some con- 
fusion with each other, and rose again. From Mr. 
Forehead's familiar nod to me, I should have thought I 
had seen him but yesterday, instead of parting with him 
full two years before. I should have returned it with a 
solemn bow, had not the service which Mr. Welby was 
now performing made it improper for me to bestow on 
him the slightest recognition. Their assistance in the 
tune which succeeded was very fine, and very accept- 
able to the choir and congregation. They joined us 
again, however, in the afternoon, and while we were 
singing the first psalm, they thought proper, instead of 
lending us their voices, to accompany us with a singular 
stridor^ emitted through the nearly closed lips, and re- 
sembling something between the sound of a bassoon 
and the lowest tone of a bass-viol. Some of the choir 
were frightened, some were shocked, and some very 
nearly burst out with laughter. My own distress was 
inconceivable. I felt haunted by Mr. Forehead. Ren- 
dered absolutely disheartened at the thought of endur- 
ing that sacrilegious, though I confess not entirely in- 
harmonious buzz, through the two remaining hymns, I 

8 



86 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

retired from the meeting-house and went home. Mr. 
Forehead immediately assumed my office, for the after- 
noon, and his friend, at the request of Mrs. Shrinknot, 
exchanged his imitative experiments for more natural 
and appropriate tones. 

This, however, was the most disagreeable episode in 
the present poetic period of my existence. It is doubtful 
whether at length the separation from my own family 
caused me a keener pang, than the thought that I must 
resign, and perhaps for ever, all connection with a little 
circle, in which I had lately enjoyed, in so eminent de- 
gree, the double privilege of receiving happiness and 
doing good. 

After my departure, a variety of causes, unnecessary 
to be detailed, contributed to the gradual decline and 
ultimate extinction of the choir on its old foundation. 
My shorter college vacations I spent at home, and in 
vain endeavored to arrest this melancholy tendency by 
the few exertions I could make to rally the scattered 
members. Sometimes I found that a miserable kind of 
contest had been waged between Mrs. Shrinknot and 
the singers of the other sex, who made all the efforts in 
their power to emancipate themselves from the mortify- 
ing dominion of a woman. But they could never suc- 
ceed, not a man among them possessing sufficient tact, 
knowledge, and presence, to carry off the business of a 
leader well. The singing was always decent under her 
management, but under theirs it was perpetually liable 
to mistakes, interruptions, languishments, and helpless 
amazements. There was, however, no open, clamorous 
warfare between the two parties, but only on one side 
the restless attempts of pride to repair its own mortifica- 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 87 

tions, and on the other the calm defiance of conscious 
superiority. They avoided an actual clashing before the 
congregation. The lady always affected a perfect readi- 
ness to yield her authority, whenever there were gentle- 
men present who chose to set the psalm. But this state 
of things of course produced frequent embarrassments in 
the choir. The bowings and the consultations between 
Mrs. Shrinknot and the gentlemen, occasioned by doubts 
respecting the propriety of particular tunes and other 
matters, were frequently protracted long after the minis- 
ter had read the psalm or hymn, and the congregation 
would sit waiting and wondering for the music to begin. 
Meanwhile, as was to be expected, several of the least 
zealous members of the choir would from time to time 
steal off from their duties, to sit below, rather than be 
witnesses and partakers of such pitiable scenes. 

The prosperity of my former hobby was still further 
affected by the introduction of theological perplexities. 
A flaming young preacher, who carried some points of 
orthodoxy considerably further than I could then, or can 
even now approve, had been recently settled in a neigh- 
boring town, and exchanged services one Sabbath with 
Mr. Welby. Tall of stature, cadaverous in aspect, and 
gloomy in his address as the very depths of midnight, he 
arose, and after pausing three minutes, during which his 
eyes were riveted on his book, he gave out the forty- 
fourth hymn of the Second Book of Dr. Watts, in a 
voice a full octave below that tone which is commonly 
called the sepulchral. The hymn is a terrific combina- 
tion of images respecting the future abode of the wicked, 
and contains, among others of a similar nature, the two 
following verses : — 



88 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

" Far in the deep where darkness dwells, 
The land of horror and despair, 
Justice hath built a dismal hell, 

And laid her stores of vengeance there. 

" Eternal plagues, and heavy chains. 
Tormenting racks, and fiery coals, 
And darts to inflict immortal pains. 
Dyed in the blood of damned souls ! " 

On that day the person who undertook to act as lead- 
er of the choir was a middle-aged tinplate-worker, who 
had lately become a warm convert to the doctrines of 
Universalism. There were a few of his own persuasion 
in the singing-seats, and there were some who thought 
little of the matter either one way or the other, but who 
would gladly have excused themselves from singing the 
appointed lines, if others of a milder character could be 
substituted. 

Mrs. Shrinknot was born to be finally an ultra-relig- 
ionist, but she had not yet taken her decided part in 
polemics. Her imagination had been much wrought 
upon at this very moment by the novel phenomenon in 
the pulpit. She was already an incipient convert; al- 
ready prepared to yield up her mind to the whole influ- 
ence of his manner, and the whole demands of his doc- 
trines. When she perceived, therefore, that a majority 
of singers in the octagon had come to a resolution not 
to sing the forty-fourth hymn, second book, nor even a 
single verse of it, her whole soul was inflamed with the 
spirit of personal and controversial opposition. She 
turned round to Mary Wentworth, and requested her 
support, as she was about to rise and commence the 
hymn, in spite of the fixed resolution of the other side 
of the choir. Mary shook her head with her usual firm- 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 89 

ness, and her friend appeared for a moment damited. 
But at length, when a sufficient time had elapsed to put 
the congregation out of all patience, and the young the- 
ologian had arisen again from his seat, and was again 
leaning far over the cushion, with eyes prying into the 
gallery, to ascertain, if possible, the cause of the delay, 
Mrs. Shrinknot, at the very moment of her rising to com- 
mence the hymn alone, was interrupted and astonished 
by the following dialogue, which took place between the 
tinplate-worker leaning over the gallery, and the clergy- 
man leaning over the pulpit. 

Tinplate-worker, — " You are requested, reverend sir, 
to give out another hymn." 

Minister. — " Why am I requested to do so, sir ? " 
Tinplate-worker. — " We do not approve of the senti- 
ments of the hymn you have just read." 
Minister. — "I decline reading any other." 
Tinplate-ivorker. — " Then we decline singing, sir." 
Minister (after pausing some time, with a look of 
wretched anxiety, sorrow, indignation, and horror, at 
what he felt was a sacrilegious violation of his undoubt- 
ed authority). — " Let us pray." 

The congregation obeyed his direction, so far as rising 
on their feet could be so doing ; but had he said, " Let 
us speculate on the scene that has just occurred," his 
exhortation would have obtained a far more universal 
compliance that day than is generally paid to dictations 
from the sacred desk, and would have corresponded with 
marvellous exactness to what actually rolled over and 
over in the minds of the audience, while the minister 
himself was beginning at the Fall, and going through the 
whole body of divinity in his prayer, dwelling at much 

8* 



90 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

length and with peculiar emphasis on the most dreadful 
realities of the future world. 

Of course, during the ensuing week, the parish was in an 
uproar. The communing members, technically called the 
church, who bore omnipotent sway in the internal affairs 
of the congregation, pressed upon Mr. Welby the execu- 
tion of this rule, namely, that he should begin at the 
beginning of Watts's Psalm-Book on the next Lord's 
day, and, proceeding regularly through that book, cause 
every verse of every psalm and hymn, without omission 
or exception, to be sung in their existing order, and never 
should depart therefrom, — Watts, like the Book of 
Common Prayer in the Church of England, receiving, in 
many parts of this region, an equal reverence with the 
Bible. 

But the measures taken to secure sound doctrine were 
ill calculated to preserve good singing. From this mo- 
ment my poor choir labored with its death-wound. Oc- 
casionally considerable numbers would attend it, and 
even the tinplate-worker condescended to lend his ser- 
vices, when he could look forward and ascertain that the 
psalms for the day interfered not with his ultra-latitudi- 
narian creed. But there was no system, no regularity, 
no zeal, none of that essential e sprit- de- corps which con- 
stitutes the very life of a band of singers. You could 
more easily calculate on the weather of an approaching 
Sabbath, than you could on its miisic. A visit of Mr. 
Murray, the Universalist preacher, to the neighborhood, 
was certain to draw three quarters of the choir away. 
Mary Wentworth departed to keep school at Hampton 
Falls. Mrs. Shrinknot, disgusted with the moderation 
of Mr. Welby, who has always satisfied myself with his 



THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 91 

mild orthodoxy, rode constantly several miles to attend 
the ministrations of the young divine, who had inno- 
cently caused an accelerated decay of the choir. A 
sense of the unfashionableness of singing at the meet- 
ing-house, would at times pervade all the females of the 
village, and keep them for several months in their pews 
below. A hundred caprices, a hundred quarrels, rose 
one after another, in quicker succession, and of more 
paltry nature, than I can permit myself to describe. The 
very knowledge of sacred music seemed to be fast decay- 
ing. No recruits from the rising generation prepared 
themselves as formerly to take part in this interesting 
portion of worship. No movement was started from 
any quarter to effect a better order of things. All 
classes were sunk in musical apathy. The Village 
Harmony, and other Collections belonging to the seats, 
were carried off and never recovered. Many of the 
benches in the octagon were broken down by idle boys 
who went to overlook the doings of town-meetings, and 
were omitted to be repaired. A feeble attempt was 
generally made to sing once on each part of the day, 
but that precariously depended on Mr. Welby's feelings 
and state of health. And if now and then a scattered 
worshipper or two straggled into the seats, it was either 
because they wished to change their places at church for 
the mere sake of variety, or because they could call no 
other spot their own. 

Such was the condition in which I found the once 
flourishing singing-pew at Waterfield, when, after hav- 
ing passed four years in Harvard College, and three 
in a lawyer's office in the county of Bristol, I came and 
nailed up a professional sign in the centre of my native 



92 THE VILLAGE CHOIR. 

village. On the first Sabbath, instinct led me to the 
spot. In going to the meeting-house, I confess I felt 
too much complacency in the conscious improvement 
which the preceding seven years had effected in my 
mind and person. But, alas ! this momentary infirmity 
was full severely punished, when, on approaching the 
singing-pew, I perceived it too desolate and dusty to be 
occupied. I passed a mournful day ; but better times 
and better things erelong arose, which I may perhaps 
be able to recount at some future period, when (if my 
present essay find favor with an indulgent public, and 
my leisure from an increasing business permit) I shall 
attempt the History of a Nevj- England Singing- School * 



1828. 



=* It has been one of the fond dreams of the author's life to accomplish the 
task intimated in this closing sentence. The conception of his plan admit- 
ted a wide variety of characters, an extensive and diversified field of incident 
and action, and a representation of many interesting progressive develop- 
ments of social life in New England. But the imperative demands of a 
higher path of duty, concurring with several years of impaired health, and 
somewhat perhaps with his distance from the scene of action, have prevented 
the execution of an undertaking, to which he would gladly have devoted the 
vigor of his powers. 



THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL LIT- 
ERATURE UPON ANOTHER; 



AN APPLICATION OF THE SUBJECT TO THE CHARACTER AND 
DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



That every nation, like every individual, has an intel- 
lectual and moral character, original and peculiar to it- 
self, may be regarded as an established axiom. Conse- 
quently, the literary productions of every nation must be 
more or less characterized by the stamp of its peculiar 
genius. If we could imagine among nations .a long- 
continued abstinence from mutual intercourse, we must 
also suppose several sorts of resulting literatures, as 
diverse from each other, in kind if not in degree, as are 
those of China and Europe of the present day. A state 
of things like this would assuredly depress the general 
standard of thought and laiiguage throughout the world. 
No nation, any more than a solitary individual, can be 
imagined to inherit from nature, and to centre in itself, 
so proud an affluence of thoughts, emotions, and expres- 
sions, as to place it beyond the reach of improvement 
from foreign sources. In the same manner as the private 
members of society are induced to lay aside many a 
rude peculiarity, to suppress many a narrow prejudice, 



94 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

and to catch many a bright idea and generous emotion, 
by means of constant interchanges in life, so is the in- 
tellect of a whole nation, by coming into contact and 
collision with the intellect of other nations, enabled to 
elevate its own habits of thought, to seize upon more 
effective modes of expression, and to winnow its litera- 
ture from national or accidental imperfections. 

It is evident, however, that a process of this kind may 
be carried too far, and that a nation may indulge so ex- 
travagant a passion for foreign models, as to sacrifice 
that charm and vigor of originality, for which scarcely 
any acquired accomplishments can be regarded as an 
equivalent. For, to recur to our comparison drawn from 
private life, no individual ought to extend his love or 
deference for society so far, as to sacrifice a certain origi- 
nality and independence of character. If he only learns 
to avoid offensive eccentricities, and gives general proof 
of having breathed the air of good company, his native 
peculiarities may not only be forgiven, but admired. It 
is thus in the intellectual intercourse of nations. We 
shall see, in the historical survey now to be presented as 
an illustration of these remarks, how nations which have 
united a firm self-reliance with a suitable degree of flexi- 
bility to foreign impressions, have attained the highest 
literary rank ; and, on the other hand, how their litera- 
ture immediately degenerated, at the moment when they 
either disdained, or too devotedly sought for, influences 
from abroad. 

The first example shall be drawn from the ancient 
literature of the Hebrews. That literature is the conse- 
crated drapery of heaven-inspired truths. Yet, as the 
personal style of Isaiah differed from that of Daniel, or 



LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. 95 

the style of St. John from the style of St. Paul, — as David 
prophesied in the language of the palace, and Amos in 
that of the herdman's lodge, — so a reverent and discrim- 
inating inspection will not fail to perceive that the He- 
brew literature, like that of all other nations, was more 
or less subjected to the great law of circumstance. 
Springing forth, as it did, along a line of two or three 
thousand years, during which the fortunes of the nation 
were frequently varying, we shall find it approximating 
to the highest standard of excellence, according as the 
inspired writers united with the wonderful peculiarities 
of the Hebrew mind a liberal susceptibility to exterior 
impressions ; and then again receding from that lofty 
standard, either through an injudicious imitation of for- 
eign models, or an entire exclusion of all foreign influ- 
ences whatever. Accordingly, behold it first under Mo- 
ses, the deserved admiration of subsequent ages. To 
the noble fountain of his own native Israelitish literature 
and a remoter East, Moses applied a mind, rich, as St. 
Stephen informs us, in the wisdom and learning of the 
Egyptians. The union of these two magnificent streams 
resulted in the production of the Pentateuch ; in the 
same manner as the influence of two mighty rivers some- 
times throws up an island, covered with majestic forests 
and fragrant and beautiful flowers. For what has ever 
equalled the sublime pictures of creation and nature in 
the Pentateuch, — the lovely simplicity of its descrip- 
tions of patriarchal and pastoral life, — the vivid and 
graphic reality of its narratives, — its authentic charts of 
the primitive genealogy of nations, — and the concise, 
comprehensive, and intelligible texture of its legislative 
phraseology ? To the same period is generally referred 



96 THE INFLUENCE OP ONE NATIONAL 

the composition of the Book of Job, which vies in literary 
excellence with the Pentateuch. 

To the Mosaic era succeeded the times of the Judges, 
when intercourse with foreign nations was rigorously for- 
bidden. Accordingly, again, we find a poverty of literary 
documents to be characteristic of this period ; no poetry, 
no didactic treatises, nothing scarcely, in short, save the 
meagre annals of the commonwealth in war and in peace, 
until the time of David. With David, and especially 
with Solomon his son, commenced an entirely new 
epoch. Conquest and commerce now brought the na- 
tional mind again into contact with foreign influences. 
Immediately also advanced the standard of Hebrew lit- 
erature. The delightful little history of Ruth is the first 
fruits of a transition from the rude age of the Judges to 
the enlightened period of the monarchy. To this era, in 
its subsequent advancement, will the world for ever be 
indebted for the Psalms of David, that inexhaustible 
repository of sacred poetry, as varied in its subjects and 
moods of religious sentiment as were the tones of his 
own exulting or complaining harp. To the same era 
belongs also that treasure-house of moral and practical 
wisdom, the Proverbs of Solomon. Contemporary also 
with this was unquestionably the Book of Ecclesiastes, 
a didactic poem, or colloquy, of the highest character, in 
which the Byron spirit of this world appears to be com- 
paring notes with the Fenelon spirit, respecting their rel- 
ative opinions and experience of the condition, prospects, 
and destiny of human nature; the whole closing with 
that unparalleled lesson for the confident and inexperi- 
enced, with this initial sentence. Remember noiv thy Cre- 
ator in the days of thy youth, — which, while it is adorned 



LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. 97 

with a profusion of ingenious and beautiful imagery, 
obeys, throughout, the laws of a delicate and scrupulous 
taste. When were the accumulating infirmities of old 
age ever described with so much physiological exactness, 
blended with such fine touches of poetry and pathos ? 

Nor ought we to forget, in connection with this topic, 
the inimitable idyl, or series of idyls, entitled The Song 
of Solomon, combining a perfect tenderness of sentiment 
with the fascinating simplicity of nature and the most 
exquisite music of poetry. The truth is, the good old 
stock of Hebrew intellect was now again released from 
the confinement and constraint to which it had been for 
several centuries subjected; a freer and a wider .atmos- 
phere was allowed to breathe in upon it ; it was stimu- 
lated by the fresh contact of a mould different from its 
own native soil, and the result, as we have seen, was the 
production of fruits more than usually divine. Traces 
of Hebrew and Egyptian intercourse are very evident in 
the sacred literature of this period. Champollion, in his 
successful studies of the hieroglyphics, was more and 
more struck by the recurrence of expressions coincident 
with the language of the Psalms. It is well known 
that portions of the Song of Solomon refer to the Egyp- 
tian princess whom he had married, and who is called 
his sister-bride^ in contrast to the Ammonite princess, 
whom he had previously espoused. Among the recent 
wonders of Egyptian discovery is a v/ell-identified por- 
trait of that very princess, and near it an inscription 
of the same expression, sister-bride, which occurs in the 
Hebrew song. In the same Hebrew poem, she is li- 
kened also to a sacred garden. Every scholar knows that 
these sacred gardens originated in Egypt, and were 



98 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

guarded by the first order of nuns. The following trans- 
lation, by an elegant scholar, of the whole passage from 
the Song of Solomon, will recall the classical descriptions 
of the same subject as deduced from Egyptian sources : — 

" A sacred garden is my sister-bride, 
A sacred garden, and a well-spring sealed ; 
A paradise of sweets, wherein preside 
The fairest fruits which spiciest blossoms yield, 
Such as in youthful Eden were revealed ; 
Camphor and spikenard flourish 'midst its flowers, 
Spikenard and balsam, cane and cinnamon ; 
Gem-scattering fountains bathe its fragrant bowers 
Of myrrh and incense, balm and origan ; 
While living waters leap from cedary Lebanon." 

The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah everywhere exhibit 
manifest indications connecting them with this most 
classic era in Hebrew literature. With Daniel and Eze- 
kiel the pure standard of Hebraism seems somewhat to 
decline, in consequence of the extreme Oriental spirit too 
deeply imbibed from the Chaldeans during the Babylon- 
ish captivity. Then came a wide reaction, under the 
later minor prophets, who, spurning and denouncing 
every species of foreign influence, fell back upon the nar- 
row intellectual resources of the nation, and were con- 
tented with a literary standard considerably inferior to 
that of the Davidean era. 

During the next four hundred years, as the nation 
grew in importance, and came in contact with its differ- 
ent conquerors, we see the literature of the Apocrypha 
and the Rabbis assume a higher character, until at 
length the Hebrew mind, shone upon by the strong and 
near effulgence of Grecian and Roman refinement, and 
still specially breathed on, as in the days of old, by the 
spirit of God, displayed, in numerous portions of the 



LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. 99 

Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, the boldest 
stamp of literary excellence. The highest degree, and, 
as it were, the summary exponent and focus of that ex- 
cellence, I consider exhibited in St. Paul's celebrated def- 
inition of Charity, comprising the thirteenth chapter of 
the First Epistle to the Corinthians, too familiar to all 
readers to require a repetition. This chapter, to a literary 
eye, presents a remarkable combination of qualities. To 
the gorgeousness and fervor of Plato, without his vague- 
ness and mysticism, it unites the strict and acute anal- 
ysis of Aristotle, without his cold, material, mechanical 
philosophy. The inarch, the logical sequence and devel- 
opment of the sentiments, are truly beautiful, while a 
luxuriant abundance of ideas and images is crowded 
within the smallest possible compass, like the miraculous 
economy of an organized human body. The Apostle, seiz- 
ing upon the Greek term charity ^ brings to its illustration 
a throng of Jewish recollections and sacred references. In 
short, the Hebrew mind, in its highest and purest state 
of inspiration, mingling and struggling with the Roman 
and Grecian minds, in their palmiest stage of moral and 
intellectual cultivation, could alone pour out this un- 
equalled strain of divine philosophy, which urges forward 
the whole human race to the path of its loftiest duty, 
and the attainment of its brightest ultimate destiny. 

The Apostles, with the exception of the Rabbinical 
authors, were the last writers of the pure Hebrew stock ; 
since Josephus and Philo, who succeeded them by a 
few years, were content to sacrifice all remains of nation- 
ality to the engrossing genius of classic Greece. 

The genius of classic Greece suggests the second great 
example to illustrate the theory which I have undertaken 



100 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

to establish. I am aware how scanty and almost imper- 
ceptible are the traces of foreign influence to be actually 
discerned in the works of the earlier Greek authors. It 
has been asserted by some of the ablest critics of the 
day, that the w^hole body and spirit of ancient Greek 
literature were perfectly original, — perfectly indigenous ; 
and that it would have been in all respects such as it is, 
had no other national literature existed. Now I am 
willing to allow that the intellect of the ancient Greeks 
was by far the most original, the most independent, the 
most spontaneously active and self-fertilizing, of any in 
existence. But that it ever did, or could, start forward 
on its peculiar race of glory without an early and pow- 
erful stimulus of exterior influence, is quite contrary to 
historical facts and probabilities. Greece was surround- 
ed by nations who certainly preceded her in the march 
of civilization and literary cultivation. The Egyptians 
on the south, the Phoenicians on the southeast, the Per- 
sians on the east, the cultivators of Sanscrit and other 
Oriental literatures, had all made very considerable ad- 
vances in science and letters, for ages before a Greek 
song was sung in the valleys of the Peloponnesus, or a 
Greek inscription recorded on its rocks. We know that 
an active commerce was driven by the Phoenicians along 
the shores of the Peloponnesus. Is it possible that they 
could refrain from communicating a portion of their in- 
tellectual acquirements to so lively, inquisitive, and sus- 
ceptible a people as the Greeks? We know that the 
Greeks themselves ascribed to a Phoenician the introduc- 
tion among them of sixteen letters of their alphabet, and 
the strong resemblance existing between several letters 
of the Greek and Hebrew alphabets confirms the tradi- 



LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. 101 

tion. Now, would mere letters be likely to be introduced 
without a literature ? At all events, is not the tradition 
itself a conclusive proof that the Greek mind, proud as 
might have been its subsequent literary achievements, 
was indebted to another national mind for the very in- 
strument by which those achievements were effected, — 
thus confirming the main positions of this essay ? And 
when we consider, again, those wondrous resemblances 
between the structure of the Greek language and that 
of the ancient Sanscrit tongue, — between many por- 
tions of the Greek philosophy and the Indian philosophy, 
— between the gods of Greece and those of India, as de- 
monstrated by Sir William Jones and others, — can we 
possibly resist the conclusion, that the Greek literature, 
at a very early period, received an impulse and an im- 
press from some Oriental source, to which it was indebt- 
ed for many of those infinitely varied qualities that 
stamped its glorious and triumphant living reign of two 
thousand years ? Did Herodotus travel through so many 
foreign cities without imbibing something of the various 
national characteristics which he witnessed ? Was he 
the first of his nation, or the only one of his age, who 
wandered abroad for improvement? Must there not 
long have existed between Greece and the surrounding 
countries, channels of refined intercourse, through which 
a mental action and reaction must have been constantly 
reciprocated? Was the Persian court always open to 
the banished statesmen of Greece, without exercising 
some influence on her literature ? Do we not perceive, 
in the majority of Greek authors, a certain tinge of Ori- 
ental simplicity on the one hand, and Oriental gorgeous- 
ness on the other, quite distinct from that masculine, 

9* 



102 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

compact, energetic spirit, which may be regarded as the 
essential characteristic of the Grecian mind? It is no 
objection to these views of the subject, that we cannot 
point out allusions to any extraneous literature, or hear 
the Greeks acknowledging their obligations to other 
nations, or find them actually quoting by chapter and 
verse from the sources in question. Do we find such 
acknowledgments in Virgil, or Terence ? And yet do 
we not know that Virgil and Terence would scarcely 
have enjoyed a literary existence except by means of the 
Greek originals from whom they drew their very breath 
of life ? Besides, it is not absolutely necessary for the 
purpose of my argument that a tangible literature should 
have preceded the productions of the Grecian mind ; that 
libraries, parchments, and other written monuments, 
should have been imported at home, or studied abroad. 
It is enough if personal intercourse and oral communi- 
cation were frequent and prolific. If Homer or the Ho- 
meridse could ever listen with delight to the wandering 
or stationary bards of other lands, and treasure some of 
their strains in their own melodious souls, to be after- 
wards woven into their own majestic and unrivalled 
harmonies, my general theory is supported. 

It is certainly, moreover, confirmed by the influence 
which writings in the different dialects of Greece exerted 
on each other. The tribes who spoke those different 
dialects may be regarded in the light of so many differ- 
ent nations. And who will deny that much of the per- 
fection of the Greek literature was owing to the inter- 
change among those different tribes, — to their borrow- 
ing from each other various modes of thought and forms 
of expression, — to the noble stimulus of mutual exam- 



LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. 103 

pie and competition, — and to the power they thus pos- 
sessed of working up one general literature from the 
choicest sources and materials ? Why else did Herodo- 
tus abandon: his native Dorian dialect, to write his gen- 
eral history in the Ionic, if processes of this nature were 
not constantly in action ? 

The views now urged are still further confirmed by 
the new and strong impulse which was certainly given 
to the whole Grecian mind, when Pisistratus had col- 
lected the fleeting fragments of the Homeric poetry, for 
the benefit of his countrymen. 

We shall soon see by other examples, in the course of 
the remaining examination, how a revival of the ancient 
literature of any country within itself produces similar 
effects with the introduction and commixture of foreign 
literatures. Sufficient has now been advanced to war- 
rant the conclusion, that, notwithstanding the self-relying 
and creative energies of the Greeks, yet even they were 
benefited by influences from abroad, and that, like their 
own Apollo, who condescended to accept from Mercury 
the caduceus, or mystic rod of power, wisdom, diligence, 
and activity, so was even their intellectual character 
raised by the enlightened genius of commercial inter- 
course. 

The question respecting Roman literature is much 
more easily disposed of. For some hundred years, that 
literature was like a savage crab-tree, growing in its own 
native solitude, and producing fruits, pungent and fla- 
vorous indeed, but small, scanty, and unprofitable. At 
length, the rich scions of Greece were grafted upon it, 
and not until then did it start up into a prolific and mag- 
nificent luxuriance. The Roman literature has been 



104 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

sometimes slightingly spoken of, as a mere echo or re- 
flection of the Grecian. But it is a noble echo, like that 
which speaks out from a mountain rock ; a brilliant re- 
flection, like that which gleams from a mirror in the pal- 
ace of kings; and who does not always love to contem- 
plate the daring and successful image of a glorious 
original? 

The Roman, however, was far from being a servile 
imitator, or mere translator. There is a native dignity, 
a conscious sense of power, in all his movements. Jt has 
been happily said of him, that whatever he borrows, he 
borrows like a conqueror. He appropriates to his own 
intellectual nature many qualities of the Grecian char- 
acter, making them entirely his own. Yet perhaps he 
would have assumed a more commanding station in 
the domain of letters, had he trusted more to his own 
resources, and paid a less exclusive and absorbing ado- 
ration to the intellect of Greece. He could have origi- 
nated much more, if he had dared. But he generally 
feared to depart from prescribed forms and models. 
When he does venture to pour out his soul, as Ovid, or 
to impersonate the very genius of the commonwealth, as 
Cicero, or to prosecute independent courses of specula- 
tion, as Tacitus, we are made to feel the inherent majes- 
ty and energy of the Roman mind. In such cases, the 
trammels were thrown off; the old traditionary reverence 
for everything Greek was forgotten ; the pupil rose to a 
level with his master; and the reader, borne onward by 
the combination of originality and greatness, finds this 
only to regret, — that the Roman soul had not more fre- 
quently thrown itself on the tide of letters, with the 
same fervor, the same enterprise, the same singleness, 



LITERATUKE UPON ANOTHER. 



105 



the same unconscious and spontaneous nationality, with 
which it threw itself on the tide of battle and victory. 

When letters were beginning to decline in every other 
part of the Roman empire, they were cultivated with 
fresh and extraordinary activity at Alexandria. Libraries 
accumulated, authors were multiplied, and every sort of 
encouragement was given to the cause of learning. But 
why did nothing more valuable and impressive proceed 
from the far-famed Alexandrian school? Why are we 
only indebted to it for a wilderness of commentary, a 
body of second-hand and second-rate philosophy, and a 
mass of literature that merely imitates and counterfeits 
the literature of olden times ? It is because, at this 
period, there was no nationality, no independent vigor, 
in Egypt. Her scholars welcomed the flood of mate- 
rials which came to them from Greece and Rome ; but 
they were at this moment only the insignificant portions 
of Greece and Rome themselves ; they were overborne 
by the inflowing stream, and had not power to rise 
up and meet it, to mingle with it, to assimilate it with 
their own intellectual resources; and for this reason, 
Alexandria sustains so comparatively low a rank in the 
community of letters. 

Two or three centuries passed away, and, behold, the 
national mind of Arabia, which had so long slept in sol- 
itude and inaction, lighted up by the influence of the 
Jewish and Christian Scriptures ! Mahomet was but 
the representative or type of his whole nation. The 
Koran, for which he so largely drew from the Bible, 
and from old traditionary thoughts, images, and experi- 
ences of Arabia, awakened the national intellect to ex- 
traordinary vigor. And then again, a few generations 



106 THE INFLUENCE OP ONE NATIONAL 

later, after the excitement of universal warfare and the 
orgasm of victory had subsided, and the Arabians were 
attracted to the treasures of Greek and Roman literature, 
the genius of the nation took a new and sudden flight. 
Not only did the Arabians keep the torch of science 
burning during the Dark Ages, and preserve many lit- 
erary monuments, which would otherwise have perished, 
but they themselves effected very considerable achieve- 
ments in philosophy, history, mathematics, and poetry. 
To their influence, when they were masters of Spain, has 
been justly traced the rise of the Troubadours and Trou- 
veurs in France. The tide of conquest at length rolled 
back ; the Arabians were placed on the defensive ; they 
adopted the policy of excluding foreign intercourse, dis- 
daining the ideas and attainments, as well as the society, 
of other nations ; — and where is their literature now? 

The example of China also confirms the principles 
maintained in this essay. The literary monuments of 
the Chinese are not destitute of considerable talent, in- 
genuity, and proofs of industry. They have a drama, a 
history, a poetry, a philosophy, an ethics, and a philology, 
by no means contemptible. Still, there is a jejuneness, 
a puerility, a provincial narrowness of grasp, in all the 
specimens of their literature that have yet reached us, 
only to be accounted for by the perfect mortmain in 
which the national mind has been locked up for centu- 
ries, and only to be removed by a liberal intercourse with 
the intellect of other nations. 

India surpasses China in almost all the branches just 
enumerated, and especially in a refined system of gram- 
mar and logic. Why so ? It is, that she has been for- 
merly, as she is now, the theatre of national collision 



LITERATUEE UPON ANOTHER. 107 

and commixture, and successive Greek, Mahometan, and 
Christian conquests have necessarily elevated the stand- 
ard of her literature. 

Persia, again, has a more perfect literature than either 
China or India. Her central position has blessed her 
with benign influences from the East and from the 
West. She has a noble stem of nationality, which has 
survived the storms of many thousand years ; and when- 
ever her soul shall be fully opened to influences of en- 
lightened Christian Europe, she will assuredly take her 
place among the foremost nations of the earth. 

It is now time to survey the progress of the modern 
Western world, so far as it may be connected with the 
particular vein of the present discussion. 

Long had the mind of Europe been slumbering. The 
inexhaustible and uncultivated millions of the North 
had everywhere overspread her surface. The ancient 
and the recent inhabitants had begun to amalgamate. 
The young nations that had sprung into being from 
these admixtures had each a genius peculiar to itself, 
— a genius capable of great things in its own due 
time. But as yet there was no manifestation ; no devel- 
opment; no creative spark; since the period had not 
arrived for collision and influence from abroad. But the 
Crusades mingled the nations of the East and the West 
together; and soon after the last of the Crusades, w^e 
have Dante in Italy, and Chaucer in England, as the 
glorious fruits. A hundred years later, the scholars of 
Greece, exiled from their native land by the irruption 
and oppressions of their Turkish conqueror, spread them- 
selves through the South of Europe, and were every- 
where welcomed, not only as Christian brethren in exile, 



108 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

but as the teachers and enlighteners of mind. Imme- 
diately revived the general cultivation of ancient litera- 
ture ; and immediately, too, burst forth, not puerile and 
slavish imitations of the ancients, but original, indepen- 
dent, vigorous national literatures. Italy had already 
led the way in Dante. Her language arrived soonest at 
perfection. The mental creations of her Boccaccios, Pe- 
trarchs, Ariostos, and Tassos rolled out in full-orbed 
beauty, at once the heralds and promoters of similar cre- 
ations in other lands. It is remarkable, that, since the 
revival of letters, Italian literature has been able to boast 
of no very splendid era besides this, its earliest develop- 
ment ; whereas England, as we shall immediately see, has 
exhibited four or five such eras at least. The fact may 
be accounted for, on the principles of this essay, partly 
by the declining sense of nationality and independence 
to which the misfortunes of Italy have subjected her, and 
partly by the restricted intellectual intercourse with other 
nations, which the policy of her rulers, both religious and 
political, has imposed upon her. During the last forty 
years, however, when the aspirations of Italy after a dis- 
tinct national existence have been frequently revived and 
encouraged, and she has cultivated with some diligence 
the different literatures of Europe, her science, her po- 
etry, her history, and her romance have assumed an im- 
posing attitude, and borne very valuable fruits. 

At the revival of letters, England first followed in the 
train of Italy. She received the benefit not only of the 
awakened cultivation of the Greek and Roman classics, 
but of the recent emanations of the Italian mind, as well 
as of several successive translations of the Christian and 
Hebrew Scriptures. If we can imagine the mind of 



LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. 109 

England arousing at these voices, and coming forth to 
mingle in the united progress of Greece, of Rome, of 
reviving Italy, and of the Bible, we can comprehend the 
existence of a Shakespeare, a Spenser, and the other 
prodigies of the age of Elizabeth. It matters not that 
Shakespeare, personally, was but slightly versed in the 
original productions of other times and other lands. He 
needed not the accomplishments of minute or extensive 
erudition. He was the intellectual type of his age and 
nation. By the instinct of genius, he knew and felt the 
essence and spirit of what they knew and felt ; and in 
fact the latest researches have discovered that his edu- 
cation was sufficiently elevated and comprehensive to 
bring him within reach of the highest sympathies and 
affinities, so that he might grasp the fruits and results of 
the learning of his age, although he himself had never 
delved about its roots. 

The same influences which wrought the wonders of 
the Elizabethan era long continued to operate, and con- 
tributed, we conceive, to the formation of a Dryden and 
a Milton. The national mind then languished for a 
generation, after the exhaustion of the civil wars. It 
was awakened to new and brilliant action in the age 
of Queen Anne, by the copious influx of French lit- 
erature, which had arisen to its highest tide-mark in the 
reign of Louis XIV. 

Immediately after the age of Queen Anne, we have a 
school more intensely British in its character, and with 
many characteristic excellences, consisting of such writ- 
ers as Fielding, SmoUet, Richardson, Chesterfield, Thom- 
son, and Gray. This school was very naturally begin- 
ning to languish for want of external stimulus and 

10 



110 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

sustenance; to its dramatic attempts we may well and 
feelingly exclaim, in one of its own lines, of unfortunate 
celebrity, — 

" Oh, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, oh ! " 

while Smollet's history, too unlike his romances, is but a 
wretched basket of the dryest chips. But as the eigh- 
teenth century continued to advance, the power and 
relations of England also extended. Her intercourse 
with the several nations of Europe, and with Eastern 
Asia, attracted her to their literatures. The usual happy 
reaction on her own mind took place, and the middle 
and nearly the latter half of the eighteenth century exhib- 
ited the splendid constellation of Johnson, Hume, Gold- 
smith, Junius, Robertson, Gibbon, Warburton, Cowper, 
Sir William Jones, Horsley, Burke, and their celebrated 
contemporaries. The whole world was tributary to Eng- 
land, and English literature, in consequence, assumed a 
kind of majestic metropolitan character, as if speaking 
for the instruction of many nations, or rather of man- 
kind. But by this very dictatorial attitude it was essen- 
tially injured. It became too proud and self-relying. 
At the commencement of the present century, nothing 
was more characteristic of England, in every respect, 
than a sovereign contempt for other nations. This feel- 
ing extended itself to her literary relations. She seemed 
scarcely conscious that any literature but her own was 
worthy of a thought. She despised the literature of 
Germany; she despised the literature of France; she 
despised the literature of Italy; she despised the lit- 
erature of the East; even her cultivation of the an- 
cient classics was pursued as if it were a kind of old- 



LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. Ill 

English prerogative to know something of Greek and 
Latin; it was simply hereditary, prescriptive, habitual, 
mechanical, and was more engrossed by the pedantic 
mysteries of prosody than by the scope and spirit of 
those divine productions. And what was the conse- 
quence of this state of things ? Her own literature be- 
came itself contemptible. A Hayley and a Darwin were 
idolized as poets ; a Hoole was endured and was even 
popular as a translator; an Aikin was submitted to as a 
critic ; a Bisset was listened to as an historian and biogra- 
pher; and the periodical press was degenerating into the 
feeblest inanity. But out of this accumulation of insi- 
pidity was destined to ascend a new and beautiful crea- 
tion. The whole energies of England were aroused by 
her vital contest with the military phenomenon of the 
age. Her pride, though not indeed subdued, was shaken 
by her dangers. She began to feel fair sympathies with 
other nations, and to remember that hers was not the 
only star in the firmament of mind. Moved by the agi- 
tations of the times, the then rising generation of Eng- 
land looked for light from every quarter. The finest 
geniuses sat at the feet of Germany. Scott, by his trans- 
lations from Goethe, and Coleridge, by his purveyances 
from German philosophy, contributed to bring the literary 
productions of that nation into repute ; Roscoe, although 
then in middle life, awoke a fresh interest in the authors 
of Italy ; the Edinburgh Review called attention to the 
almost forgotten excellences of the Elizabethan era; 
Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael extorted respect 
for the reviving literature of France ; Germany was 
rendered still more fashionable by the captivating com- 
mentaries of Madame de Stael ; and all these powerful 



112 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

elements, pouring in upon the English mind, already in 
fervid action, prepared the way for the glories of the first 
quarter of the nineteenth century, — its Scotts, Camp- 
bells, Southeys, Byrons, Wordsworths, Moores, Lambs, 
Coleridges, Milmans, Crabbes, together with its unri- 
valled school, or rather schools, of periodical literature. 
The original, native vein of the French intellect was a 
delightful one ; lively, precise, penetrating, graceful. It 
welcomed with the utmost ardor the commixture of 
Greek and Roman materials at the revival of letters, but 
for a long time it paid them a too absorbing reverence, 
forgetting its own glorious capacities, and becoming most 
ludicrously pedantic. At length the genius of the na- 
tion restored itself to a happier equilibrium, and under 
its influence sprang forth the long line of authors from 
Montaigne to Voltaire, who have shed so brilliant a 
lustre around their country's name. Still the French 
mind has never yet attained its highest destiny. Drink- 
ing chiefly from the stream of classical literature, and 
almost disdaining to be nourished from other sources, it 
has ever worn a too artificial and antique character. Its 
whole past literature savors strongly of the classic oil. 
Rousseau indeed acknowledged his obligations to Eng- 
land, and especially to England's Richardson, who 
taught him to draw from his own soul and from nature. 
But Voltaire, who may be called the very genius of 
France incarnate, could feel no true appreciation or sym- 
pathy for Shakespeare, who was equally the incarnate 
genius of England. The Revolution shook the mind of 
France from this too narrow and restricted system. She 
now seeks everywhere with avidity and docility for intel- 
lectual sustenance. England, Germany, Italy, and the 



LITERATtRE UPON ANOTHER. 113 

East combine to prompt her new and freer impulses ; 
and although of late she has been defiled and tormented 
with a literature which knows no law, moral, religious, 
or critical, yet even now she is blessed by some bright, 
redeeming exceptions. Whenever her political institu- 
tions shall be so adapted to her character as to secure 
her repose, how can we doubt that the country of St. 
Louis, of Henry IV., of Corneille, of Fenelon, of Madame 
Roland, and of Lamartine, enjoying the most felicitous 
position in Europe, and with so much of pure Athenian 
spirit in her composition, shall yet accomplish her part 
in the elevation of the whole human mind, and thus 
fulfil the appropriate destiny of beautiful France ? 

Spain and Portugal present striking exemplifications 
of the principles maintained in this essay. The impulse 
of Greek and Roman literature at the revival of letters 
was felt in due proportion by these two nations. Their 
respective minds were aroused at the summons, and 
spoke out characteristically and impressively. What 
might not have been fairly expected from the country 
that produced a Camoens, or from the still greater and 
nobler nation that could boast of a Calderon, a Lope 
de Vega, and a Cervantes ? But what could those na- 
tions do? Shut out by a jealous Index Expurgatorius 
from the world of letters, they could but vegetate in 
solitude and darkness. A few plants, peeping here and 
there through the fissures in the dungeon wall, have 
caught some rays of the external light, and manifested 
a corresponding vigor and beauty ; and such is the brief 
story of Spanish and Portuguese literature for the last 
two or three centuries. 

Germany devoted herself so exclusively and intensely 

10* 



114 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

for two hundred years to the cultivation of the classical 
authors, and of a dogmatic, formal theology, as almost 
to forget her own nationality, and the abundance and 
richness of her interior resources. The vast popularity, 
however, and general circulation of Luther's Translation 
of the Scriptures, preserved her from the extreme of ped- 
antry, and infused into her earlier literature, subsequent 
to the revival of letters, a certain solemnity and tender- 
ness. When beginning to awake, at the commence- 
ment of the eighteenth century, and to look forth for 
some new impulse to her powers, she was naturally 
attracted to the commanding literature of her neighbor, 
France, which she cultivated with undue admiration 
and docility. Its spirit was permitted to predominate so 
much over her own, as to check and overlay the half- 
dormant energies of her native genius. But as she was 
still at liberty, — as she could go where she pleased 
among the nations, for sustenance and stimulants, — she 
next instinctively turned to the literature of England, to 
•which she gave herself up with her usual fervid assiduity. 
Hence a very remarkable improvement was effected in 
her intellectual harvests. Klopstock may be regarded 
as the representative of this stage of her development. 
But she still moved on. The untiring and unbounded 
erudition of her sons brought to light the long-buried 
treasures of her early popular songs and tales, in which 
the original germ of the national mind had richly bud- 
ded ; these were studied with a fond ardor by her schol- 
ars and poets; an intense German spirit was revived, 
mysterious like the visions of Walhalla, but delighting 
as much as ever did Odin or Thor in the materialities 
of earth. Italy was now visited by the Germans for the 



LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. 115 

effects of her literature and her art ; and out of all these 
combined workings and influences of three hundred 
years arose the mountain era. of which Schiller, Wie- 
land, Richter, Lessing, and Goethe are among the lofti- 
est summits. 

Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have pursued a course 
very similar to that of Germany. Like her, they long 
wrote and read in Latin, when they ought to have writ- 
ten and read in their own mother tongues. Like her, 
they were then seduced by the brilliant example of 
France, and their literatures were but feeble echoes of 
that of the great nation. And lastly, like her, they have 
applied themselves to other European sources of instruc- 
tion, especially to England ; they have revived, and dili- 
gently cultivated, the study of their old Icelandic and 
other Scandinavian treasures ; a national spirit is awa- 
kened within them, which, however, disdains not to profit 
from every quarter, and the result appears to be a prom- 
ising era of fresh, vigorous, and beautiful emanations. 

The literary existence of Russia resembles that of an 
overgrown youth of talents, and therefore hardly comes 
within the fair limits of the present inquiry. The very 
alphabet which she uses was the invention and gift 
of Peter the Great, her representative type, who, by his 
visits abroad, seems to have been aware of the benefits 
conferred on the cause of civilization and refinement by 
foreign impulses. The few specimens of her literature 
which have been circulated, especially the sublime Hymn 
to the Deity, translated by Dr. Bowring, and familiar to 
almost every English reader, are highly creditable to her 
genius. 

I am unable to assign a reason why so little of original 



116 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

and inventive literature has been presented by Holland 
to the commonwealth of mind, or at least so little that 
has attracted general attention. Whether she was too 
long and disproportionately addicted to classical eru- 
dition and severe philosophy under the auspices of 
her Grotius, — or whether her national elasticity was 
cramped by her former subjection to Spanish despotism, 
— or whether she entered with a too absorbing zeal into 
the theological warfares of the seventeenth and eigh- 
teenth centuries, — or whether her language, which is 
but an ungainly dialect of the German, has repelled the 
study of it by foreigners, — or whether there be some- 
thing sluggish and fenny in her powers of invention, — 
she certainly appears to have made no deep and general 
impression, although both her position and fortunes have 
been favorable to great intellectual advancement. Dur- 
ing the last century, however, she led the way in the pur- 
suit of classical learning and the sciences, and youth were 
sent from every part of Europe and America, to acquire 
the highest education at her universities. I learn also, 
that, within the last twenty or thirty years, several pro- 
ductions of the Batavian muse, characterized by great 
refinement and sensibility, have in some measure re- 
deemed the unpoetical reputation of the Low Countries. 
This happy movement, however, was preceded by a 
welcome reception into the country of the most choice 
and brilliant masterpieces of the modern British, French, 
and German belles-lettres. 

The principles maintained in this essay are particu- 
larly fortified by the example of Scotland. Her inge- 
nium perfervidum was intensely wrought upon by the 
revival of letters, and the introduction of the treasures 



LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. 117 

of Greece and Rome. The admirable Buchanan, alike 
classical in his Latin prose and poetry, is the type of this 
stage of Scottish development. Meanwhile, the stir of 
this and the subsequent periods kept alive that exquisite 
old vein of Scottish poetry, which the first James had so 
successfully cultivated, and which awaited its last and 
most glorious manifestation in the person of Burns ; for 
the poetry of Scott, delightful and peculiar as it is, I 
deem rather a part of the general movement of the whole 
British intellect, before accounted for, than of the spe- 
cific progress of his own native land. It is true that the 
themes and the scenes of his own country, chiefly, were 
the proximate stimulants of his wonderful powers ; but 
in the lifetime of Sir Walter the individuality of Scot- 
land was completely merged into that wider one of the 
whole British mind, and the great author, as he wrote, 
felt not the pulse, nor addressed the audience, of Scot- 
land alone, but of that mighty empire on which the sun 
never sets. The intercourse of Scotland with France 
during the short reign of the unfortunate Mary, seems to 
have produced no striking impression on the national 
mind ; for France herself at this period was working 
almost exclusively in the classical mine, and had not yet 
commenced her peculiarly national literary career. It is 
said, however, that the dialect and pronunciation of the 
people of Edinburgh bear marks to this day of the influ- 
ence exerted by the loquacious and polished court of 
Queen Mary. During the seventeenth century, the mind 
of Scotland was principally engrossed by theological 
exercitations. Exclusively dedicated to the genius of a 
metaphysical faith, she shared very little in the cultiva- 
tion of general literature, and scarcely opened her spirit 



118 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

to influences from abroad. But when her union with 
England was achieved, then commenced the era of her 
greatest literary glory. The natural effect of external 
contact, collision, and competition, arising from her rap- 
idly increasing intercourse with England, immediately 
appeared. While reading Hume, Robertson, Smith, 
Campbell, Blair, and even Stewart, one almost imagines 
them sitting in their studies, — or rather walking, for they 
cultivated the habit of dictation, — moulding every sen- 
tence and every chapter so as to fall with the requisite 
grace and effect on the Southern ears for which they 
chiefly wrote. Some of them, indeed, are said to have 
acknowledged, that they composed in English almost 
with as much difficulty as they would have done in a 
foreign language. Hume abounded in Gallicisms, as 
Johnson once truly remarked in conversation. We have 
seen, in an old European Magazine, a most formidable 
list of errors against the English language committed by 
Dr. Blair in the first edition of his Lectures on Rhet- 
oric. Robertson seems to have made a special study of 
English idioms, which he would sometimes employ as a 
school-boy selects sentences from a Gradus ad Parnas- 
sum. Thus, in the midst of whole pages of elevated, 
flowing, and dignified history, he would introduce such 
mosaic-work remarks as that " Mary doated on Darnley 
to distraction." The whole of Stewart's first volume of 
The Philosophy of the Human Mind seems to have been 
composed exactly in the same tone in which he would 
have aimed to compose an inaugural address in Cice- 
ronian Latin. Still, notwithstanding these disadvan- 
tages in point of language under which Scotland la- 
bored, the influence of foreign cultivation awakened so 



LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. 119 

much ambition and so much dormant power in her sons, 
that in her philosophy and her literature, during the lat- 
ter half of the eighteenth century, she enjoyed the ac- 
knowledged pre-eminence of being the instructress, not 
of England only, but of Europe. And at the moment 
when mere English poetry, as described in a preceding 
statement, was at its lowest ebb, were heard the native 
wood-notes wild of Robert Burns, bursting on the aston- 
ished and delighted ear of civilized man, and creating 
even new schools of thought, of poetry, of criticism, and 
of philanthropy, founded on the widest basis of human 
sympathies and human interests. Nay, even Burns 
himself, however original and idiosyncratic, was mould- 
ed under the influences which have just been traced. 
The finest spirit of English poetry is manifest in a thou- 
sand touches throughout his works, equally with the 
ruder strokes of his own Doric muse. He himself ac- 
knowledges the indebtedness of his intellectual growth 
to some selections from Goldsmith and other English 
poets, which captivated his young mind at school. 

Soon after the commencement of the present century, 
Scottish literature became completely merged and iden- 
tified with that of England; though, even so late as the 
establishment of the London Quarterly Review, that jeal- 
ous periodical complained that the language, as well as 
the politics, of England, was continually corrupted by 
the heresies and solecisms of its Edinburgh rival. 

The various problems regarding the ancient literature 
of Ireland, I pretend not to solve, or at all events to apply 
to these speculations. Since the conquest, her sons 
have partaken the intellectual fortunes, and not seldom 
increased the intellectual glories, of Great Britain. 



120 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

The populations and the literatures of Europe have 
sent out their various streams to our own shores, to be 
reunited and flow on together, in the single channel of 
American destiny. This new and momentous experi- 
ment in the progress of the human mind must deeply 
interest all who more or less directly participate in its 
advancement. If the principles advanced in the fore- 
going pages have been established by a competent in- 
duction, every enlightened scholar amongst us must 
be desirous of effecting and witnessing their faithful 
application in his own country. 

Accordingly, our first aim, we apprehend, should be 
to cherish in our literature the peculiar qualities of the 
American character, as an indispensable groundwork 
for the appropriation of all other materials. And what 
are these qualities ? What are the main, distinguish- 
ing characteristics which belong to this vast amalgama- 
tion of races, after having been sufficiently long re- 
moved from the manifold corruptions, trammels, pre- 
scriptions, and artificial distinctions of the Old World, 
and allowed to spring forth anew with the spontaneity 
of nature? As we apprehend, they are these, — the free, 
the intrepid, the excursive, the inventive. We see these 
attributes in most of the public and private movements 
of our land, — mingled indeed with sad mistakes, — fol- 
lowed sometimes by disasters, — but finally prevailing 
over opposition and discouragement. They are discern- 
ible in our ceaseless emigrations, — all of us being from 
the first but a nation of emigrants, — in our daring Revo- 
lutionary and subsequent wars, in our ravenous and in- 
satiable appetite for territory, in our mercantile specula- 
tions, our religious opinions, our indomitable Protestant- 



LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. 121 

ism, our camp-meetings, our stump and our legislative 
oratory, our pulpits, our pleadings, our tribunals, our 
election-seasons, our periodical press, our multitudinous 
new inventions, our political expedients, our vices, our 
various societies to repress them, our laws, our violations 
of them, our schools, and sometimes in our very amuse- 
ments, — the most popular exhibition, for instance, at 
the West, for several years, having been a terrific repre- 
sentation of the infernal regions, with the actual roaring 
of the flames, and the audible bowlings of the damned; 
while at this moment a picture three miles long, repre- 
senting the whole valley of the Mississippi, is delighting 
hundreds of thousands of visitors. 

The traces of these same qualities we also perceive in 
what little national literature we yet can boast of, as 
haying made an impression on the European world. 
The theologian Edwards, — our state papers, so eulo- 
gized by Madame de Stael, — our recent historians, — 
our eagle-winged Channing, and bird-of-paradise-plumed 
Irving, — our Brockden Brown, — our other few distin- 
guished novelists, — and the elite of Bryant's, PercivaPs, 
and other successful American poetry, — all exhibit the 
possession of these common characteristics. 

But as these many qualities are peculiarly liable to 
excess, abuse, and degeneracy, how can their more peril- 
ous tendencies be better resisted than by the assiduous 
and liberal cultivation of all rich and wholesome foreign 
literatures ? 

We have seen, in these remarks, how a resort to such 

sources, in all ages and climes, has been productive of 

the happiest effects; how taste has been rectified, and 

expression improved, and thought fired, and a nation's 

11 



122 THE INFLUENCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

mind assisted to burst its old shell, and put on new 
wings. Fortunately, the facilities for such processes are 
greater in our own country than were ever known before. 
Different races may approach each other on our common, 
friendly soil, without having to wait long ages for the 
removal of national antipathies ; and their literatures may 
be brought together without the necessity of fighting 
their way through mutual mistake, prejudice, ridicule, 
and exasperation. The Frenchman and the Englishman 
sit down side by side on the borders of the same stream, 
and the German teaches his little son the language of 
his fathers, while he sends him to the common school 
provided by their adopted country. 

Among modern literatures to be resorted to for these 
great purposes, the preference should unquestionably be 
given to the English. Its pages we should turn with 
daily and nightly hands. It is the well-spring of our 
language. It embodies a spirit the nearest to our own. 
"Without fear of undue, servile dependence, let us freely 
consult its past and present monuments ; let us listen 
with patience to its malignant or well-meaning criticisms 
on our national defects, and let us endeavor to ingraft 
the choicest mental offshoots of our English ancestry on 
our own free, intrepid, and vigorous stock. 

There are disappointed and jealous American writers, 
who complain that a disproportionate patronage is lav- 
ished among us on English literature. But so danger- 
ous a heresy ought boldly to be met and extinguished. 
It would be suicidal folly to turn away from the unri- 
valled treasures of England, out of tenderness for our 
own authors, however promising and meritorious they 
may be. We must not renounce the privilege of look- 






LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. 123 

ing, almost with a fond adoration, to the country where 
there now exist, and have existed for many a long year, 
the mighty workings of an intellect the most robust, — 
a research the most varied, laborious, and successful, a 
scholarship the most graceful and accomplished, a sci- 
ence the most profound, a genius the most inventive, 
pathetic, and humorous, a poetry familiar with the lof- 
tiest aspirings or the tenderest tremblings of the hu- 
man spirit, — all sustained by the advantages of a me- 
tropolitan position among the nations, a thousand years 
of traditionary lore and accumulated material, and an 
intensity of competition, of itself sufficient to call forth 
whatever powers and excellences lie dormant in our 
nature. Nothing indeed could better guard us from our 
national tendencies to a faulty extravagance, than the 
unwearied and straightforward good-sense of the Anglo- 
Saxon mind; that mind, by the way, which alone has 
clung, from the times of the Heptarchy, with a kind of 
instinctive, yet enlightened and liberal tenacity, to the 
combined study of the Sacred Scriptures and the pagan 
classics. 

The remarkable fact here alluded to is at once a justi- 
fication of the leading principle of this essay, and the be- 
quest of an invaluable example for Americans to follow. 
As for the treasure of the Scriptures, it is already, or may 
be, in the hands of every American citizen. It contains, 
beside the waters of eternal life, whatever of sesthetic 
riches can be found for us in the whole body of the Orien- 
tal literatures, without their childish extravagances and 
defects. The Greek and Roman classics we must con- 
tinue to study with unflagging, or rather with increasing 
ardor. We trust that something even of the utility of 



124 THE IXFLUEXCE OF ONE NATIONAL 

that study has been demonstrated in these remarks. But 
even though it came short of mere mechanical utilitari- 
anism, and failed to satisfy the political economist, let it 
be remembered that the alabaster-box of precious oint- 
ment may be sometimes substituted for the hundred 
pence given to the poor. It is cheering to find a general 
sentiment prevailing in our country, in harmony with 
this viev^^ Notudthstanding incessant attacks on classi- 
cal learning, and clamorous appeals against it from every 
quarter to the principle of utility, the hundred colleges 
and universities throughout our land have persevered in 
maintaining the Greek and Roman classics in the fore- 
ground of a liberal education. We may have few or no 
giants in erudition like those of Europe, but it is evi- 
dent that our standard of classical learning is rising from 
the point of depression to which it had once sunk. A 
goodly number of elementary treatises and text-books 
proceed every year from the press. The best German 
preparatory works abound more and more among us, in 
accurate translations. In all our new Territories and 
States there is a constant demand for teachers of the 
classics. 

Abundant encouragement should next be given to the 
study of the modern European and other languages, 
as taste and opportunity may lead the way. 

By these means, and by the exercise of an unsleeping 
discrimination, we may yet hope to build up a literature 
that shall have something of the primitive and earnest 
simplicity of the Scriptures, something of the practical 
good-sense of the English, something of the precision 
and point of the French, something of Italian smooth- 
ness, something of Spanish grandeur, something of Ger- 



LITERATURE UPON ANOTHER. 125 

man comprehensiveness, and much of the all-pervad- 
ing, never-dying, perfect taste of the ancient classics, 
blended with the free, independent, and elastic attributes 
of our own national mind. Even though these specific 
foreign ingredients should not be perceived in the new 
compound of American literature, yet a result may be 
happily produced no less precious.* 

This is a subject worthy of our most earnest contem- 
plation. The literature of a country will sooner or later 
find its way, for good or ill, to the minds and hearts of 
its whole population. A Voltaire could loosen the faith 
of palaces and oi faubourgs, — a Hannah More could 
strengthen that of princes and of peasants. Is it not 
worth while to furnish the humblest individual with 
accurate and impressive forms of thought and language, 
which shall convey as nearly as possible the exact truth 
of things, and awaken the most desirable associations ? 
Is it not worth while to provide, by every possible meth- 
od, that the resources of the listless and the vacant shall 
be multiplied, that light shall be afforded to the inquir- 
ing, and that the incessant activity of the intellect and 
the affections should be furnished with the most salutary 
and palatable food ? A literature which accomplishes 
this for any country, is the greatest of its blessings. Mis- 
fortunes may overwhelm her; the tide of invasion or the 



* It has been acutely remarked, on the circumstance of one national char- 
acter arising from the union of any two separate races, that " in morals, as 
in physics, the commingling of two ingredients appears to produce a third, 
totally different from the rest. The new substance does not unite the quali- 
ties which distinguished its constituent elements while they remained apart, 
but acquires qualities which were found in neither." — For. Quart. Rev., 
No. 71. 

11* 



126 RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF NATIONAL LITERATURES. 

changes of time may sweep away the accumulated mon- 
uments of her wealth and grandeur ; her sons may sit 
down to weep by her broken columns, or, more bitter 
still, they may be forced to remove in exile from her 
cherished dust ; but if they can still press her immortal 
literature to their bosoms, they have not yet lost their 
mother-land, — she lives, and speaks to her children. 

1836. 



ESSAY ON POSTURES. 

WRITTEN FOII AN EARLY NUMBER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.* 

" Sedeant spectentque." — Virg. 
" In most strange postures we have seen him set himself." 

Shakespeare. 

Mr. Editor, — 
Among the many ingredients which go to form the 
complete scholar, all must allow posture to be quite 
pre-eminent. He would deserve a sneer for his pre- 
tensions, who affected the literary character whilst at 
the same time he was ignorant of the rare and difficult 
accomplishment of sitting with his feet against the wall 
at a higher level than his head, or of leaning in due 
contemplative style upon his elbow. But the subject 
has unfortunately never been reduced to a science. How 
is it, sir, that the motions of the stars, for centuries to 
come, have been nicely adjusted to the fraction of a sec- 
ond, — that metals, and alkalies, and gases have been 
classed and systematized, — that the operations of the 
mind have been analyzed and developed, — that anat- 
omy, even anatomy, that kindred department, has left 
almost no region of its own unexplored, — whilst the far 

* The North American Eeview originally included a Miscellaneous De- 
partment. 



128 ESSAY ON POSTURES. 

more domestic, human, useful, and every-day business 
of postures has remained unnoticed and forgotten ? To 
remove this scandal to science is the object of the few 
humble pages following. The author will be satisfied 
if he but excite attention to the subject, and will gladly 
leave the consummation of his attempt to greater adepts 
in attitude than himself. 

Posture, sir, in its most general sense, may be defined, 
a modification of the body and limbs, for the purpose 
either of ease or show. It may be divided into standing, 
kneeling, lying down, and sitting. The first belongs 
chiefly to the arts of dancing-masters and drill-sergeants ; 
the second, to love and devotion ; the third, to ladies of 
fashion and delicate valetudinarians ; it is the fourth and 
last only which now claims our attention, and that, prin- 
cipally, so far as it respects the sedentary class of people, 
called scholars. We shall enumerate the several varie- 
ties of sitting postures, describing them as exactly as 
possible, and dwelling on the peculiar advantages which 
they possess with the quiet votaries of literature. 

First. The most universal, easy, and gentlemanlike is 
denominated the cross-kneed posture. All ranks, classes, 
and ages of males, together with some individuals of the 
other sex, cultivate this attitude with very happy suc- 
cess. It is no uncommon thing to see as many as six- 
teen or seventeen in a company, who, throughout an 
entire evening, most patiently and heroically persevere in 
this inoffensive mode of arranging the nether limbs. The 
child of three years of age adopts it among the first imi- 
tative accomplishments which excite the joy and admi- 
ration of his parents. The aspiring school-boy, by piling 
one knee upon another, adds a year to his existence, and 



ESSAY ON POSTURES. 129 

bodies forth the dignity of the future man. The youth 
who is just entering the world, who has a letter of intro- 
duction to Mr. of Boston, or New York, or Phila- 
delphia, would be put to infinite embarrassment if the 
privilege of crossing his knees were denied him. But 
without going through every age for the illustration of 
this division of our subject, I proceed to observe, that 
the cross-kneed posture is not to be adopted by all per- 
sons, at all times, and on all occasions. It is much too 
nice and trim for every-day use. I know many a re- 
spectable farmer who will never sit in this fashion 
except in his best suit, on a Sunday, or at a board of 
selectmen, or at the examination of a district school, or 
when visiting an acquaintance in town. What, sit 
cross-kneed and erect in a plain frock and trousers, and 
on a common working-day I Why, sir, it would be as 
preposterous and uncommon, as to read the Bible on a 
Monday, or to fix one's thoughts and eyes during the 
offering up of prayers on a Sabbath. 

But this part of our subject is susceptible of a few 
subdivisions. Of cross-kneed postures there are five 
kinds: — 1. The natural^ which consists in throwing one 
knee over the other, and thinking no more about it. 
This is by far the best, and ought to be recommended 
universally to your readers. 2. The broad-calfed^ which 
is effected by turning the upper knee out in such a man- 
ner, as to present as large a face of the inner calf as pos- 
sible. This was very much in fashion nineteen years 
ago, but has since that time gradually subsided, and is 
practised, I believe, at present, only by those who love 
the fashions of their youth, and a few country-gentlemen 
in nankeen pantaloons. 3. The long-legged, so called, 



130 ESSAY ON POSTURES. 

because this posture requires the foot of the upper leg to 
reach quite down to the floor. It was attempted to be 
brought into fashion about ten years ago, but it could 
not succeed, in consequence of the shortness of the limbs 
of some gentlemen in high ton at that time. It is never- 
theless a graceful and elegant posture, and may be prac- 
tised by your readers, for variety's sake, and with consid- 
erable ease, if they will but remember to draw the foot 
of the under leg in an oblique, retrograde direction, giv- 
ing the upper an opportunity to descend and meet the 
floor. I have seen it employed with much execution at 
tea-parties and morning calls, but it is too much of a 
dress thing to be used on common occasions. 4. The 
aivkivard. This consists in bringing the upper leg round, 
and locking it behind the other. Persons of absent 
habits, or of indifferent breeding, use this posture in com- 
pany. In private, it is employed when a man gets a 
little nervous, and is besides almost always assumed un- 
consciously, when one is engaged in a deep mathemati- 
cal investigation. Hence, great mathematicians, with 
some splendid exceptions, are rarely exempt from the 
habit of sitting in this mode. Lastly. The bowsprit 
posture. This your fashionable, juvenile readers will 
recognize to be the one which is at present universally 
in vogue. It consists in extending out the leg as far 
and as high as the muscle can bear. Two or three years 
since, our boot-manufacturers — [shoemakers is a word 
quite out of date) — very kindlyas sisted this posture by 
stiffening the instep of the boot, so that the style in ques- 
tion could be properly preserved without much painful 
tension. 

I am strongly inclined to believe, that the bowsprit 



ESSAY ON POSTURES. 131 

posture was adopted in this country out of compliment 
to our gallant seamen. It is at present used by about 
one half of the gentlemen you meet ; but so far as my 
observation extends, appears (probably in consequence 
of the peace) to be somewhat on the decline. 

I would remark, by the way, that the cross-kneed pos- 
ture is now almost out of use with the other sex. There 
was indeed an attempt, about five or six years since, to 
get up the fashion among ladies of adopting this posture, 
and at the same time of bending over the upper foot, so 
as to make it form a crescent. She whose foot could de- 
scribe the most complete curve was envied and admired 
by all her competitors. But alas I Mr. Editor, there are 
but few persons whose feet are sufficiently flexible to 
enable them to shine in this accompfishment. And so it 
was dropped. Out of a company of twenty-five ladies 
whom a friend of mine reconnoitred the other evening at 
a tea-party, twenty-one sat with their feet parallel and 
together ; two, a matron somewhat advanced, and a 
maiden lady, whose old associations of gentility induced 
them so to sit, were found in the cross-kneed predica- 
ment ; and the remaining two, being the youngest of the 
whole company, had drawn their feet under their chairs, 
and crossed them there. 

Bat we have too long deferred the more immediate 
object of this essay, which is to show the connection be- 
tween posture and literature. At what times, and on 
what occasions, shall the cross-kneed posture be adopted 
by the decorous and conscientious scholar ? In the first 
place, let him be sure immediately to assume it on the 
entrance of a stranger into his study. It is almost as 
great a mark of ill-breeding to use any other mode of 



132 ESSAY ON POSTURES. 

sitting on such an occasion, as it would be to hold your 
book still open in your hand. I own, that no posture in 
which you can sit conveys quite so barbarous a hint to 
your poor visitant as the holding of your book open, 
which, I regret to say, is sometimes unthinkingly indulged 
in by scholars, who would be sorry not to be thought gen- 
tlemen. But, sir, let me repeat it, the cross-kneed is the 
posture in which to receive a visitor with whom you are 
not on terms of considerable intimacy. It gives you 
time to collect your ideas; it tacitly informs your visitor 
that he is of consequence enough in your eyes for you to 
think about the position of your limbs ; it thereby concil- 
iates his good feelings, and induces him civilly to pre- 
sent before your face a similar example. When you are 
thus both seated according to due form and manner, you 
may interchange thoughts with much facility and effect. 
But be sure not to abandon the cross-kneed posture till 
the end of the first half-hour. After that period, you may 
venture to stretch your feet out, and lean back in your 
chair. By the end of the second half-hour, you may put 
your feet over the fireplace, and if your visitor stay two 
hours, and be somewhat tedious and unprofitable, con- 
trive by all means to get a table between you, and thrust 
your feet up into his face. Time is valuable, insomuch 
that the saving of it is one of those few instances where 
the end sanctifies the means. It often is not enough to 
pull out your watch, — not enough to sit ten minutes 
without saying a word to your companion, or even look- 
ing at him, — not enough to glance every two minutes at 
your study-table ; no, sir, the only method often which 
is efficacious is the attitude I have just mentioned, which 
may be called the assault-and-battery posture, and which 






ESSAY ON POSTURES. 133 

exhibits a new and fair illustration of the importance of 
our subject to the man of letters. 

In the second place, let the votary of literature adopt 
the cross-kneed style in general company. The great 
advantage of it there is, that it saves him from a thou- 
sand ungraceful attitudes, and strange crookednesses, 
which savor too decidedly of the study, and into which 
he w^ill be apt almost inevitably to slide, if he ventures 
beyond the sheltering precincts of the cross-knee. It 
has too long been the reproach of the scholar, that he 
behaves like nobody else. For mercy's sake, then, Mr. 
Editor, since everybody else behaves so very well, let us 
act like them. Let us not bring a reproach upon our 
profession, and render a life of letters unpopular, by our 
manner of sitting. A few sacrifices of this nature will 
cost us no very tremendous effort, and may be of incal- 
culable service to the cause of literature and science. 

In the third place, the style in question is to be as- 
sumed amidst all kinds of plain reading, where but little 
attention and study are required. Indeed, so appropri- 
ate is it on these occasions, that scholars might very par- 
donably denominate it the belles-lettres posture. How 
delicious, Mr. Editor, when you have brought the Edin- 
burgh or the Quarterly, and for my own part, let me add, 
too, the North American, from the bookseller's, all new 

'' and fresh as is the month of May," 
to take your ivory knife in the right hand, your Review 
in the left, your cigar, if you please, in your mouth, and 
at a window, on which the rays of the setting sun are 
richly, softly falling, and a western breeze is luxuriously 
blowing, to sit — how? Unworthy he of all these in- 
valuable blessings, who takes any other posture at first 

12 



134 ESSAY ON POSTURES. 

than the true belles-lettres-cross-kneed. Or when, in the 
society of friends, you read aloud the adventures of Con- 
rad, Roderick, or Robert Bruce, or in imagination range 
through old Scotland with the author of the Antiquary, 
or visit England, France, Italy, and Greece with modern 
travellers, — whilst you gracefully hold the book with a 
wide-spread hand, your thumb and little finger pressing 
on the leaves to prevent them from closing, your middle 
finger propping the back, and the other two faithfully 
employed each to support a separate cover of the book, 
— do not fail to complete the elegant scene by adjusting 
one knee above the other in the manner worthy of your 
employment. Take, generally, this posture, moreover, 
when you read history, — when you snatch up the Spec- 
tator or Mirror to save the odds and ends of your pre- 
cious time, — when you are reading letters from persons 
with whom you are not intimately acquainted, (posture 
not being to be thought of in perusing the epistles of 
your much-valued friends,) and on all occasions, in short, 
when your mind only goes out to gather ideas, copiously, 
easily, freely. So much for this posture, sir, on which I 
would gladly write pages and pages more, if some other 
classes did not press upon me with strong claims for con- 
sideration. 

Secondly. Next to the cross-kneed, that which is most 
appropriate to secluded, literary characters is the pm'ieto- 
pedal posture. This consists, as will be seen at once 
from the etymology of the term, in fixing the feet 
against the wall. This posture was instituted for the 
relief of literary limbs. However valuable, indispensable, 
and gentlemanlike may be the cross-kneed, it would be 
fatiguing and unhealthy always to conform the body 



ESSAY ON POSTURES. 135 

strictly to its rules. For this reason, allow the feet of 
your readers occasionally to make the delicious and 
grateful transition from the floor to the wall ; with this 
strict proviso, to be transgressed on no condition what- 
ever, that they never shall so sit in the presence of a 
being of the gentler sex. And here let me expatiate, pa- 
rieto-pedal posture, in thy praise! At this very moment, 
while I am assuming thee in languid luxury, holding in 
my hand a Horace, which is prevented from closing only 
by my forefinger, unconsciously placed on Otiiim Divos, 

— here, as, in a direction parallel to the horizon, I station 
my feet against the wainscot, and, leaning back my chair, 
fall sweetly and quietly into a rocking, which is more 
gentle than the cradle-vibrations of half-sleeping infancy, 

— here let me ponder on all thy excellency. I feel thy 
influence extending through my frame. I am brought 
into a new world ; the objects around me assume side- 
long positions ; the trains of my ideas are quickened ; 
the blood rushes back, and warms my heart ; a literary 
enthusiasm comes over me ; my faculty of application 
grows more intense ; and whatever be the book which 
I next reach from the table, I find my interest in its 
contents redoubled, my power of overcoming its diffi- 
culties increased, and altogether my capacity of gaining 
knowledge incalculably enlarged and extended. Mild, 
and easy, and lovely posture I I^et the votary of de- 
corum stigmatize thee as awkward and half indecent ; 
let the physician reproach thee as unnatural and un- 
wholesome; let indigestion, with bleeding at the nose, 
and personal deformity, shake their hideous fists of 
threatening out of the mists of the future ; — still will I 
lounge with thee ; still shall every room where I reside 



136 ESSAY ON POSTURES. 

bear marks of thee, whether they be deep indentations 
in the floor, occasioned by my backward-swinging chair, 
or blacker and more triumphant insignia impressed by 
my shoes upon the wall. Be thou my shelter from the 
spleen of vexatious housewives, and the harassing for- 
mality of ceremony; soothe my full-fed afternoons; in- 
spire my dyspeptical dreams, and let my last fatal apo- 
plexy be with thee. 

Thirdly. We come now to the favorite posture of all 
severe and laborious students. It is simple, picturesque, 
characteristic. Place your elbow on the table, prop 
one of your temples with your knuckles, and, if it be ex- 
cusable to introduce features into this subject, (though 
I have another treatise partly finished upon literary 
tricks,) let a slight knitting of the brow take place be- 
tween your eyes, and you are at once — I will unhesitat- 
ingly hazard the assertion — in that position in which 
Aristotle discovered the categories ; in which Pythagoras 
investigated the properties of the right-angled triangle, 
and Locke defined infinity ; in which Newton balanced 
the world, Copernicus, like another Joshua, made the 
sun stand still, and La Place deduced the great motions 
of our system ; in which Bacon sat, while turning the 
whole course of science, as a pilot turns the course of a 
ship ; in which Stewart was seated, when he detected 
the error of the French philosophers, and proved that 
there must be something besides the power of sensation, 
which is able to compare one sensation with another ; in 
which Bentham unfolded the true principles of legisla- 
tion, and Berkeley devised the theory of acquired vision ; 
in which Eichhorn made his researches into Genesis, and 
Paley his into the Epistles ; — a posture, in short, in 



i 



ESSAY ON POSTURES. 137 

which the greatest energies of intellect have ever been 
put forth, and by the efficacy of which alone, assure your 
young readers, they can hope for eminence, or look for 
almost indefinite advances towards the future perfecti- 
bility of our race. Its name is the delving. 

Fourthly. Now, Mr. Editor, let your elhoiu remain 
precisely where it was in the last posture ; but instead 
of knitting your brow, and fixing your eyes on the table, 
let your head turn round, till your open hand is upon the 
sinciput; let your forehead be smooth, as the sleeping 
surface of a lake ; let your eyes be rolling on vacancy, 
and, presto I you are fixed at once in the genuine atti- 
tude poetical. It is this posture alone which Shakespeare 
had in his mind, nay, in which Shakespeare must have 
sat, when he described the fine frenzy of the poet, whose 
eye glances from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. 
It was this posture in which the most interesting portrait 
of Pope was executed, that has descended to our times. 
So sat he, I will hazard every poet in my library, when 
he penned this line, 

" And look through Nature up to Nature's God." 
So sat Milton, when he described 

" Those thoughts that wander through eternity." 

In this posture must Goldsmith, 

" where Alpine solitudes ascend, 
Have sat him down a pensive hour to spend, 
And, placed on high above the storm's career, 
Looked downward, where a hundred realms appear," &.c. 

It could be only while thus leaning and thus looking, 
that Chaucer used to scatter through his poems innu- 
merable refreshing descriptions of those vernal seasons, 

12* 



138 ESSAY ON POSTURES. 

" Wheu that Phoebus his chair of gold so hie 
Had whirled up the sterrie sky aloft, 
And in the Bole =^ was entred certainly, 
When shouris sote t of rain descended soft. 
Causing the ground, fele | times and oft, 
Up for to give many an wholesome air, 
And every plaine was yclothed faire," &c. 

What other attitude could our contemporary Camp- 
bell have taken, when he leaped in imagination up to 
those glorious heights on our side of the Atlantic, 

" Where at evening Alleghany views, 
Through ridges burning in her western beam, 
Lake after lake interminably gleam " 1 

In what other posture could the chaste Tasso have 
placed himself, when he addressed to the Muse of Chris- 
tianity that invocation, of which you will excuse the fol- 
lowing imperfect version ? 

" Muse ! not thou, whose meaner brows desire 
The fading growth of laurelled Helicon, 
But thou, that chant'st amid the blessed choir, 
Which pours sweet music round the heavenly throne ! 
Breathe thou into my breast celestial fire ; 
O smile, and not thy votary disown. 
If truth with flowers I weave, and deck my song 
With other graces than to thee belong." 

Byron must have sat in this posture, in some cold 
midnight, when he dreamt his dream of darkness ; and 
Southey must have persisted in the same attitude through 
a whole vernal season, when he wrote his Thalaba. 

So sat Homer and Scott in the conception of their 
battles. 

So sat Virgil and Leigh Hunt in the imagination of 
their sceneries. 

* Bull. t Sweet. | Many. 



ESSAY ON POSTURES. 139 

Wordsworth must have arranged his corporeity in the 
very quintessence of the poetical posture, when he 
sketched the following outline of his Recluse : 

" For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink 
Deep ; and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds 
To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil." 

So sat his neighbor Wilson, when he described the 
stream, half-veiled in snowy vapor, which flowed 

" With sound like silence, motion like repose^^ ; 

or the duteous daughter in the sick-chamber of her 
mother, — she whose feet 

" Fell soft as snow on snoivy 

So sat Thomson when he wrote this line : 

" Ten thousand wonders rolling in my thought " ; — 

and Lucan when he wrote these : 

'• niger inficit horror 

Terga maris : longo per multa volumina tractu 
^stuat unda minax : Jiatusque incerta futuri, 
Turbida testantur conceptos oequora ventos." 

So sat Akenside, when his mind 

" Darted her swiftness up the long career 

Of devious comets, 

and looked back on all the stars." 

So David sat (I would reverently suppose) in his 
hours of inspiration, when " contemplating man, the 
sun, moon, and stars." To say nothing of innumerable 
others. 

Fifthly. The inetaphy sic al posture. Place both elbows 
on the table, let the insides of the two wrists be joined 
together, keeping the palms just far enough asunder to 
admit the chin between them, while the tips of the little 



140 ESSAY ON POSTURES. 

fingers come up and touch the outside corners of the 
eyes. This posture, sir, from its fixedness, gives you at 
once an idea of solidity. The mutual contact of two of 
the most tender and sensible parts of the human body, 
the tip of the finger and the eye, will assist you in mak- 
ing experiments on sensation ; and as your whole head is 
fastened, as it were, into a socket, your eyes must look 
straight forward, and your train of reflection will be thus 
more continuous and undisturbed. Keep precisely so 
for several days together, and you will at length arrive 
triumphantly at the important and philosophical conclu- 
sion, that mind is matter. 

Innumerable other attitudes crowd upon my recollec- 
tion, the formal discussion of which, after just hinting at 
a few of the most prominent, I must waive, and leave 
them to be treated by writers of freer leisure, and more 
enlarged views of posturology. For instance, there is 
the dishabille posture, formed by lying at full length on 
your chair, crossing your feet upon the floor, and locking 
your hands upon the top of your head, — very common 
and very becoming. In conversation, there is the posi- 
tive posture, when you lean your cheek upon one finger ; 
the sentimental^ when you lean it upon two fingers ; the 
thoughtless, when you lean it upon three, thrusting at the 
same time your little finger into your mouth ; and lastly, 
the attentive, when you lean your cheek outright upon 
your whole hand, bend forward, and stare the speaker in 
the face. There is the sheepish posture, formed by pla- 
cing your legs and feet parallel and together, laying both 
hands upon your knees, and contemplating no earthly 
thing save your own pantaloons. This is to be assumed 
when you are overwhelmed with a joke, which you can- 



ESSAY ON POSTURES. 141 

not for the life of you answer, or when you are attacked 
with an argument which you have not the ingenuity to 
repel. There is the clerical posture, formed by laying 
the ankle of your left leg on the knee of your right, and 
so forming a triangle. Then there is the laij posture, 
made by throwing the legs wide asunder, and twirling 
the watch-chain. There is the musical posture, where 
you bring one foot round behind the other, and rest the 
toe most delicately and aerially on the floor. This was 
used by one of the small band from Bonaparte's court 
who lately charmed our metropolis with the violoncello 
and guitar. "Why is it not as appropriate to the flute as 
to the guitar? There is the monologue posture, when, 
in default of a companion, you take another chair, place 
your feet in it, and hold high converse with yourself. 
But, Mr. Editor, by far the most independent, lordly, and 
scholarly style is to command as many chairs for your 
own accommodation as can possibly come within reach. 
I had a chum, whilst I was in college, who put in requisi- 
tion every chair but one in the room. He had one for each 
of his feet, one for each of his arms, and the last for his 
own more immediate self. As our whole number of that 
article of furniture was but half a dozen, I was often per- 
plexed at the entrance of a friend to know how I should 
economize for the convenience of all seven, — I beg par- 
don, I should have said, all three of us. After some 
confused apologies, I used to offer the visitor my own, 
and betake myself to the window-seat, quite willing, I 
assure you, to undergo such embarrassments, for the repu- 
tation of living with one of the best posture-masters with- 
in the walls. Ah, sir, that was the glory of sitting! I 
cannot describe the silent admiration with which I used 



142 ESSAY ON POSTURES. 

to gaze upon the sprawling nonchalance^ the irresistible 
ennui, the inimitable lounge, with which my room-mate 
could hit the thing off after an enormous dinner. I ought 
here to observe, that the state of mind peculiarly adapted 
to the posture now under consideration is that of perfect 
vacuity^ and that, if I write much longer, I shall probably 
prepare your readers to assume it. I conclude therefore 
by wishing them all, whatever may be their favorite 
mode of sitting, 

" The gayest, happiest attitude of tilings.'^ 

1817. 






INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION OF CAUSE 
AND EFFECT.* 



A WHOLE article of solid metaphysics is a phenom- 
enon that perhaps requires apology as well as explana- 
tion. We wdll therefore briefly submit our reasons for 
its appearance. 

The philosophy of the late lamented Dr. Brown is 
scarcely known in this country. It was presumed that 
considerable interest would attach among us to the spec- 
ulations of the successor of Dugald Stewart, whose own 
work on the Mind has passed, we believe, through as 
many editions in the United States as in Great Britain, 
and who is well known, on becoming emeritus^ to have 
warmly recommended Dr. Brown to the chair of Moral 
Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. But further, 
there is a vague belief among those who are but partially 
acquainted with the nature of the late Professor's specula- 
tions, that they coincided too nearly with the dangerous 
parts of the philosophy of David Hume. A faithful 
analysis of the work before us will correct this error, and 
redeem Dr. Brown's reputation. Still further, an unjust 

* Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect. By Thomas Brown, 
M. D., F. R. S. Edinburgh, &c., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh. Third edition. Edinburgh. 1818, Svo. pp.569. 



144 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

and indiscriminate censure has overwhelmed the whole 
system of Hume itself with relation to the doctrine of 
Cause and Effect. When Professor Leslie, in conse- 
quence of having expressed his approbation of certain 
portions of that system, encountered from the ministers 
of Edinburgh strong opposition to his pretensions as can- 
didate for a chair in the University, the nucleus of the 
present volume was published in a pamphlet form, and, 
by distinguishing what was sound from what was excep- 
tionable in the opinion of Hume, contributed to soften 
the opposition made to the too honest candidate. The 
work, in its present very much enlarged state, confirms 
the points maintained in the pamphlet, and though we 
profess no love, and but qualified respect, for Hume in 
his metaphysical capacity, we are willing to assist in re- 
moving every unfair stigma from every literary reputa- 
tion. Besides these reasons, the subject itself, we should 
hope and presume, however abstruse, will not be deemed 
entirely devoid of interest and importance. Truth is 
worth looking after, even among the clouds. A bulky 
octavo is not written in vain, if it gives the world one 
clear idea, which otherwise it would not have had. The 
subject of this work, as the author truly remarks, in- 
volves the philosophy of everything that exists in the 
universe. Hence it must have some practical bearings. 
Some portions of the treatise before us might be aptly 
denominated the philosophy of religion. Considerable 
light is thrown on our relations with the Deity ; the idea 
of our dependence on him is somewhat simplified from 
that dark and confused mystery w^hich hangs over it ; 
and the clearer the idea, the deeper and better the im- 
pression it must make on the mind. The system under 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 145 

review provides also for the admission of the miraculous 
interference of the Deity, and therefore bespeaks the at- 
tention of those who honor revelation ; it admits of the 
doctrine of a particular providence, and must therefore be 
not unwelcome to the devout. In addition to these rea- 
sons, we have considered that the race of lovers of pure 
old-fashioned metaphysical disquisition is far from being 
extinct. Edwards on the Will is still the principal rally- 
ing-point of our orthodoxy, and Locke* is a general 
classic among our colleges. The influence of their style 
and speculations will make us sure of some zealous read- 
ers. In the next place, this book is a book of great 
power. They who read Montorio, Mandeville, Anasta- 
sius, Don Juan, for the intellectual energy they display, 
may here find intellectual energy enough, and not be lia- 
ble to the suspicion of seeking mere amusement from the 
narrative, or gratifying a corrupt imagination with the 
sentiments. Lastly, the improbability that the book will 
be ever published in this country, united with the high 
price of the English edition, has induced us to present 
the ensuing careful abstract to those who may not have 
access to the original work ; while they who have, may 
be glad of a thread to lead them through a book, which, 
for the abstruseness of its topics, for refinement in its 
reasonings, for diffusive amplifications, for winding yet 
collateral digressions, for long and solemn preambles be- 

* Is not a Si/stem of Metaphysics wanted for our colleges ? — something like 
a history of opinions in that science, with or without the theories of the com- 
piler. Would Locke obtain more than a respectable chapter in such a sys- 
tem ? Brucker, Stewart in his Dissertations, and Degerando would furnish 
copious and valuable assistance in compiling it. The work of the latter is 
indeed an admirable specimen of what we recommend. 
13 



146 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

fore the questions discussed are stated, thus creating the 
suspense of mind which is incident properly to forms of 
synthetical demonstration, has not many rivals ; and yet 
has no titles to its chapters, no sketch-arguments, no ta- 
ble of contents, no indexes ! 

Part First of the " Inquiry " treats of the Real Import 
of Cause and Effect. 

A cause Dr. Brown defines to be that which immedi- 
ately precedes any change^ and which, existing at any time 
in similar circumstances, has been always, and will he al- 
ways, immediately followed by a similar change. The 
object of his inquiry is to prove that there is no hidden, 
mysterious, connecting link between those antecedents 
and consequents which we call causes and effects, when 
we speak of the changes which happen in any part of 
the material or intellectual universe. The substances that 
exist in nature are everything that has a real existence 
in nature. These substances have no powers, properties, 
or qualities, separate from themselves, — words adopted 
by us only for the sake of convenience, and to express 
the changes which we observe to happen around us. A 
follows B, and B follows C. Now by all the effort which 
our minds can exert, we can form no idea of anything in 
these sequences, but the substances A, B, and C, and 
the sequence itself. We may say, that fire has the power 
of melting metals ; but all we mean, and all we know by 
it, is, that fire melts metals, which expresses only the 
two substances fire and metal, and the change, called 
melting, which takes place between them. These ab- 
stract terms are indeed of great use in assisting us to 
avoid circumlocution in our discourse ; but we are apt to 
forget (and the world, Dr. Brown ! has pretty well forgot- 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 147 

ten) that they are mere abstractions, and to regard them 
as significant of some actual reality. The powers of a 
substance have been supposed to be something very 
different from the changes which it operates on other 
substances, and most mysterious ; at once a part of 
the antecedent, and yet not a part of it ; an inter- 
mediate link in a chain of physical sequences, that is 
yet itself no part of the chain, of which it is notwith- 
standing said to be a link. The most that can be said 
of these imaginary powers or causes is, that they are 
new antecedents and sequents thrust in between the 
former, and requiring themselves as much explanation as 
the changes which they were brought to explain. 

Such we believe to be the substance of Dr. Brown's 
first section of twenty pages. His elegant paragraphs, 
his varied and ample illustrations, his occasionally appro- 
priate and eloquent reflections, and even many of his 
collateral arguments and inferences, though important, 
must of course disappear before the rugged wand of 
analysis. 

Before proceeding with our abstract, we think proper 
to notice an obvious objection which has been frequently 
urged against the foregoing definition of a cause, and to 
extract our author's reply to it, though occurring in a 
distant part of his book. If the definition be true, it is 
asked, why are not day and night reciprocally the cause 
of each other ? Dr. Reid calculated on a great triumph 
over Hume by pressing this objection. The Quarterly 
Review, we observe, has repeated it in an article on Les- 
lie's Geometry (No. VH.), and a late number of Black- 
wood's Magazine, in attempting to justify the incessant 
attacks of the editors on Mr. Leslie's reputation, has 



148 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

brought it forward again. We shall subsequently, in 
some strictures of our own upon the definition in ques- 
tion, attempt to show that this objection, and all of the 
same class, might with great ease have been obviated, if 
the notion of contiguity in place, as well as proximity in 
time, had been introduced into the definition. Here, 
however, we will let our author speak for himself. 

" It should be remembered that day and night are not words 
which denote two particular phenomena, but are words invented 
by us to express long series of phenomena. What various ap- 
pearances of nature, from the freshness of the first morning-beam, 
to the last soft tint that fades into the twilight of the evening sky, 
changing with the progress of the seasons, and dependent on the 
accidents of temperature, and vapor, and wind, are included in 
every day ! These are not one, because the word which expresses 
them is one ; and it is the believed relation of physical events, 
not the arbitrary combinations of language, which Mr. Hume pro- 
fesses to explain. 

" If, therefore, there be any force in the strange objection of 
Dr. Reid, it must be shown, that, notwithstanding the customary 
conjunction, we do not believe the relation of cause and effect to 
exist, between the successive jocm-s of that multitude of events 
which we denominate night and day. What, then, are the great 
events included in those terms ? If we consider them philosophi- 
cally, they are the series of positions in relation to the sun at 
which the earth arrives in the course of its diurnal revolution ; 
and in this view, there is surely no one who doubts that the mo- 
tion of the earth immediately before sunrise is the cause of the 
subsequent position, which renders that glorious luminary visible 
to us. If we consider the phenomena of night and day in a more 
vulgar sense, they include various degrees of darkness and light, 
with some of the chief changes of appearance in the heavenly 
bodies. Even in this sense, there is no one who doubts that the 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 149 

rising of the sun is the cause of the light which follows it, and 
that its setting is the cause of the subsequent darkness. 

" How often, during a long and sleepless night, does the sensa- 
tion of darkness — if that phrase may be accurately used to ex- 
press a state of mind that is merely exclusive of visual affections 
of every sort — exist, without being followed by the sensation of 
light ! We perceive the gloom, in this negative sense of the term 
perception ; — we feel our own position in bed, or some bodily or 
mental uneasiness, which prevents repose ; — innumerable thoughts 
arise, at intervals, in our minds, and with these the perception 
of gloom is occasionally mingled, without being followed by the 
perception of light. At last light is perceived, and, as mingled 
with all our occupations and pleasures, is perceived innumerable 
times during the day, without having, for its immediate conse- 
quence, the sensation of darkness. Can we then be said to have 
a uniform experience of the conjunction of the two sensations ; 
or do they not rather appear to follow each other loosely and va- 
riously, like those irregular successions of events which we de- 
nominate accidental ? In the vulgar, therefore, as well as in the 
philosophical sense of the terms, the regular alternate recurrence 
of day and night furnishes no valid objection to that theory, with 
the truth of which it is said to be inconsistent." — p. 387. 

The second section proceeds to urge two points; first, 
that the sort of antecedence which is necessary to be un- 
derstood in our notion of power or causation, is not mere 
priority, but invariable priority. In the unbounded field 
of nature there are many co-existing series of phenom- 
ena. Just at the moment when the fire melts the metal, 
the hand may move the metal. In this case it may be 
said that the motion of the hand immediately precedes, 
or is an antecedent to, the melting of the metal, but would 
not in fact be called the cause of it. Fire alone invaria- 

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150 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

bly precedes such a change, and is thus called its cause. 
So the sun may rise imnciediately before the tide rises, 
but the want of universal invariableness in this sequence 
prevents us from ascribing to it the relation of cause and 
effect. These illustrations we have ventured upon of 
ourselves, the author having strangely introduced none 
on this most important point, though he could have se- 
lected so many, at once rich and impressive, from the 
wide regions of nature. The second point is an argu- 
ment in favor of the author's peculiar notion of power ; 
an argument which he calls the test of identity^ and upon 
which he relies with much confidence. It is this. How 
much soever our former habits of thought, or, as the au- 
thor would have it, our former abuse of language, may lead 
us to suppose that there is really such a thing as power, 
which operates any change, exclusively of the substances 
involved in the very change itself, yet the longer we at- 
tend to it, and the more nicely and minutely we en- 
deavor to analyze it, the more clearly shall we perceive, 
that all which we have ever understood, in the notion 
which we have been accustomed to express with so much 
pomp of language, is the mere sequence of a certain 
change, that might be expected to follow as immediately 
at another time, when the same antecedent recurred in 
the same circumstances. Thus, when we say that a 
spark has the power of kindling and exploding gunpow- 
der, we say no more and no less than that in all similar 
circumstances the explosion of gunpowder will be the 
immediate and uniform consequence of the application 
of a spark. And because these two propositions com- 
municate the same identical information, the author 
maintains that the idea of power in the first proposition 
is perfectly nugatory or rather is a nonentity. 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 151 

Section third applies the foregoing arguments to all 
the mental phenomena. We wish to move our limbs, 
and they move at our bidding. Here is a sequence, and 
nothing more, — not an atom of power! 'There is in 
the first place a desire to move the hand. This is one 
phenomenon. There is then the motion of the hand, 
that is to say, the contraction of certain muscles. Thus, 
reader, you see how magically the author makes the 
power, which John Locke was pleased to confer on you, 
slip down into nothing, between these two phenomena. 
If you doubt it, he calls for his test of identity^ and 
asks. Should we learn anything new, by being told that 
the will would not only be invariably followed by the 
motion of the hand, but that the will would also have 
the poiuer of moving the hand? He then proceeds to 
explain the illusion under which the word has been 
laboring from time immemorial. It seems we have all 
along supposed such a thing to exist as the will. It is a 
mistake ; there is no such thing. A volition is but a 
momentary desire. Nature has so disposed of things 
around us, that innumerable desires are always fol- 
lowed immediately by their objects ; of which the in- 
finite varieties of contractions of the muscles in every 
part of the body are instances. If your desire of wealth 
were followed by one hundred thousand pounds as im- 
mediately as your desire of elevating the eyelid is fol- 
lowed by that muscular motion, you would call that de- 
sire will. So, if your will to move a palsied hand were 
followed by the obstinate quiescence of that hand, your 
will, with all its boasted energy, its illusive power, would 
degenerate into, or rather would remain, simple desire. 
Now it is the rapidity with which the state of things 



152 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

about US has permitted certain changes to follow some 
of our desires and not others, that has led us to ascribe 
to the former a mysterious quality called power, and to 
give them a specific name. But the author's acute 
analysis would seem to reduce into one the two opera- 
tions of will and desire, and thus to demonstrate that, in 
all our voluntary actions, there is nothing more than a 
simple sequence of two phenomena, namely, the will, or a 
momentary desire, of exactly the same kind with all our 
other desires, — and the external act. On this head, the 
author successfully combats the common sophism that 
the will and the desire may be opposed to each other, 
and exist so at the same moment of time. When a 
compassionate judge condemns a criminal to death, he 
does not at one and the same moment will the criminal's 
death, and desire his life ; the final will to utter the awful 
award of punishment succeeds his compassionate desire, 
and arises from his belief of a greater good upon the 
whole which will result from a severe decree. And so of 
all analogous cases. Be it understood, however, that 
the author has no quarrel against the term will; he 
allows it to be convenient for the purpose of expressing 
such of our desires as are immediately followed by their 
objects ; but he will not allow it to express anything 
more than desire, nor to involve a peculiar notion of 
power or energy which it has always been supposed to 
possess. 

The next question, into which the author enters with 
equally unshrinking intrepidity, is, whether what is called 
the will has any power over the thoughts, or trains of 
thought, or any states or affections of the mind. To will 
directly the conception of any particular object is, surely, 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 153 

to have already the conception of that object ; for if we 
do not know what we will, we truly will nothing. To 
will directly any idea, therefore, is a contradiction in 
thought, and almost in terms. The author shows also 
that it is not less absurd to suppose that we can directly 
will the non-existence of any idea, since our desire to do 
so would rather render it more lively. Nor is there such 
a power as indirect volition, or calling up any particular 
idea by others which we know to be associated in place 
or time ; for if we can effectively will the associated 
ideas, we can as easily will the unknown idea itself. 
The fact is, we do not call up any of these ideas ; but 
our desire of remembering something once told to us, or 
which once happened to us, &c. conlinuing', the natural 
order of associate ideas suggests itself, till, sooner or later, 
the unknown idea of which we were in quest takes its 
turn to present itself to our mental view. If the preced- 
ing views of these mental phenomena be correct, what 
becomes of the idea of that poiver which has been al- 
ways ascribed to the luill? 

Some have asserted, however, (we now go on with 
section fourth,) that from mind alone we derive our no- 
tion of power ; and that the notion which we thus ac- 
quire by the consciousness of our own exertion is after- 
wards transferred to the apparent changes of matter. 
This is Mr. Locke's theory. He supposes that when we 
voluntarily operate any change, we are conscious of 
exerting power] and thus, when we see a loadstone at- 
tract or produce a change on iron, we from the analogy 
of our feelings ascribe power to the loadstone. But if 
the arguments of the preceding section be right, we have 
nothing- to transfer from our own feelings to the opera- 



154 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

tions of matter. We desire the motion of our arm ; the 
arm moves ; there is nothing but antecedent and conse- 
quent here. So, when the loadstone approaches the iron, 
the iron moves ; here too is antecedent and consequent. 
In neither case is there a third substance, or a third any- 
thing, to be called power. If we have anything to trans- 
fer from our own feelings to the motion of the iron, it is 
desire ; which is about as reasonable as to transfer to our 
own feelings the idea of a motive loadstone. Again, 
Mr. Hume supposes that the animal nisus, which we ex- 
perience, enters very much into the common idea of the 
power of one material substance on another. But the 
author shows, by a copious, elaborate, and beautiful in- 
duction, that the universal tendency both of vulgar and 
scientific minds is never to illustrate the operations of 
material substances by analogies drawn from mind, but, 
on the contrary, only to illustrate the operations of mind 
by analogies drawn from matter. Hence, Mr. Hume's 
idea is opposed to universal experience. The section is 
concluded by a most eloquent, and, as we think, trium- 
phant attack upon that imperfect analysis, which has led 
philosophers to term matter inert, as capable only of con- 
tinuing' changes, and to distinguish mind alone as active, 
and capable of beginning changes. If mind often acts upon 
matter, as often does matter act upon mind. The truth 
is, that certain changes of mind invariably precede certain 
other changes of mind, and certain changes of matter cer- 
tain other changes of matter ; and also that certain chan- 
ges of mind invariably precede certain changes of matter, 
and certain changes of matter invariably precede certain 
changes of mind. Where then is the advantage of one 
over the other in point either of inertness or activity ? Is 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 155 

it in the motion which mind produces on matter? But 
matter, on its part, produces sensation in mind. Even the 
apparent re5^ of matter, which the author clearly shows 
is the foundation of our mistaken notion of its inertness, 
is a sort of action rather than repose. The particles of 
the seemingly quiescent mass are all attracting and 
attracted, repelling and repelled; and the smallest un- 
distinguishable element is modifying by its conjoined 
instrumentality the planetary motions of our own sys- 
tem, and is performing a part which is perhaps essential 
to the harmony of the whole universe of worlds. So 
much for the supposed inertness of matter, and for the 
origin of all our idea of power in the mind alone. 

Section Fifth. That original energy, the Omnipo- 
tent, the Cause of causes, is the subject of this sublime 
and unequalled section. But it is only physically that 
we are here brought to consider the divine power, al- 
though, in passing, the author pays to the dignity and 
interest of our moral relations with that Being a tribute 
which could have been dictated only by a mind deeply 
imbued with the most genuine living piety. The author 
firmly believes in the original dependence of all events 
on the great Source of being ; his conviction is equally 
strong that he is the providential Governor of the world ; 
but he maintains that God the creator, and God the 
providential governor of the world, are not necessarily 
God the immediate producer of every change. To sup- 
pose that he is himself the real operator and the only 
operator of every change, is to suppose that the universe 
which he has made exists for no purpose. In fact, we 
have ourselves long believed, that, so far from derogating 
from the glory of our Creator, it actually increases it, to 



156 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

suppose that he has communicated to matter those qual- 
ities and laws which produce most of the events that 
take place throughout creation. The stretch of power and 
height of wisdom in this view, if we may dare to com- 
pare what is in every w^ay infinitely above us, are greater 
than would be displayed in his universal and immediate 
interference. Yet it has long been, and is still, the gen- 
eral belief of philosophers, that, besides the physical 
causes comprehended in the antecedents of those conse- 
quences which appear as effects throughout the world, 
there is an efficient cause that in every case is different 
from them, and necessary for the production of the effect ; 
an invisible something, which connects each particular 
consequent with its particular antecedent, or rather is in 
every case the sole efficient of it. This efficient cause 
the Cartesians considered to be the Divine Being alone. 
That idea is now generally exploded ; yet still the imagi- 
nary efficient cause is retained, though with a less rever- 
ent appropriation. Against this theory our author con- 
tends that, even if you allow its truth, it only introduces 
a new operator in every change ; it only lengthens a se- 
quence of physical phenomena, and does not produce 
anything different from a sequence of regular antecedents 
and consequents. A is invariably followed by C, and I 
therefore say that A is the cause of C. But you would 
insert something between, and say that B is the real effi- 
cient cause of C. What do you thereby gain ? Have you 
discovered something between A and C w^hich did not 
appear to me ? If you have, you have only analyzed a 
complex phenomenon more perfectly than I, and I am 
ready to acknowledge the new link of connection. If you 
have discovered no such link, but only suppose it, then, 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 157 

whether it be material or spiritual, visible or invisible, 
you have still to explain how your new cause produces 
the existing effect, and are driven back to the author's 
own definition and idea of a cause, founded on the uni- 
form precession of one event to another, and nothing 
more. Nor will you gain the least triumph over the 
author, by appealing from his definition to the supposed 
constant interference of the Deity in every change that 
exists ; for, to say nothing of the utter uselessness, the 
idle, aimless, cumbrous existence of matter, which this 
appeal supposes, or the blasphemy involved in making 
the material objects of creation to be, as it were, only 
necessary reme7nbrancers for the Deity when and where 
he should act, the author is ready to meet you on your 
own ground, and he comes prepared with no other weap- 
on than his own simple definition and idea of power or 
causation. In all those cases, he demands, in which the 
direct agency of the Supreme Being is indubitably to be 
believed, even in that greatest of all eve^its, ivhen the uni- 
verse arose at his ivill, what notion are we capable of 
forming of such a change? And are we to consider that 
highest energy to be different, in nature as well as in 
degree, from the humble, delegated energies which are 
operating around us ? The author strenuously contends 
that we are not so to consider it, and that, if we rise to 
the strongest conception of the omnipotence of God, of 
which we are capable, still, in contemplating it, we only 
consider his will as the direct antecedent of those glorious 
effects which' the universe displays. This sublime and 
simple idea he shows to be entirely compatible with our 
highest conceptions of the intelligence, wisdom, benevo- 
lence, free choice, and glory of the Supreme Being, and 

14 



158 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

that to interpose an imaginary link, an intermediary 
figment, whether we call it by the name of power or any- 
thing else, between the will of God and the effect that 
darts out of it, so far from elevating, would only dimin- 
ish the majesty of the person and the scene. 

With this magnificent conclusion. Dr. Brown termi- 
nates the First Part of his Inquiry into the Relation of 
Cause and Effect. We need not say how forcibly the 
devout believer in revelation must be struck by the co- 
incidence of this result with the celebrated description of 
the creation of light and of the world in the beginning 
of Genesis. Surely, if nothing more, it is at least an in- 
teresting fact in the history of metaphysical philosophy, 
that during the last hundred and fifty years, and in that 
portion of the globe in which the Hebrew Scriptures 
have been universally laid open, and more generally read 
than any other book; — while busy, restless, and ambi- 
tious thinkers without number have agitated their sys- 
tems and theories, theologians frowning on philosophers, 
not so much for refusing to be taught by the Bible as 
for picking flaws in their schemes of divine power and 
agency, and philosophers sneering at theologians for de- 
fending a book which happened to contain no trace of 
their own refined views of the connection of cause and 
effect, of power and result; — at last, a philosopher equal 
to any of his predecessors for severe and logical habits 
of thought, for intellectual education and metaphysical 
genius, and superior to them in the advantage of coming 
later into the world, — an inquirer whose professional du- 
ty it was to search for truth among all their systems and 
theories, and who unquestionably was fully equal to the 
task of examining, analyzing, estimating, and deciding 



OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 159 

on them, — an author, too, who has carried mere refine- 
ment in reasoning as far as it was ever carried before, — 
perhaps but just short of a fault, — has at length finished 
this vain and tumultuous circle of philosophizing, by- 
coming round to the precise point where Moses began, 
and demonstrating that the founder of the Jewish polity 
and literature has, at the very outset, laid down an ul- 
timate truth, which he has so beautifully amplified and 
illustrated in his immediately succeeding emblematical 
picture of creation. So true it is, that the progress of 
philosophy, like that of social civilization and genuine 
refinement, is continually tending in its results to the 
original dictates of divine inspiration, acting on pure and 
unsophisticated nature. 

Of the notes on this part of the Inquiry it would be 
unmerciful in us to attempt to convey an idea by means 
of a detailed abstract. They contain criticisms on Mr. 
Hume's definition of a cause; an argument reducing 
what are called final causes to real prior causes in the 
mind of the Deity; additional considerations to show 
that the qualities of a substance are not separate from 
the substance itself; remarks on the universality of a 
belief, in all ages, of something like an imaginary effi- 
cient cause; a long essay on the true nature, and in 
defence of the possibility, of miracles, against the ar- 
guments of Hume, but on principles different from those 
of all Hume's former opponents, which the author thinks 
to have been inadequate ; another long essay, demon- 
strating the perfect possibility, but the very high improb- 
ability, of a particular providence, maintaining the rea- 
sonableness of the doctrine, but refuting its necessity; 
and two or three other notes, which confirm or illustrate 



160 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

some portions of the text. An abstract of the two long 
essays on miracles and a particular providence, however 
interesting in themselves to a majority of our readers, 
might perhaps serve with more propriety as an article 
for a theological journal. 

To those who have become convinced by the reason- 
ings of the preceding part, the question will naturally 
occur, How has it happened that the world has been so 
long deceived ? Why that universal concurrence of man- 
kind in every age in supposing certain causes always to 
exist separately from the substances in which changes 
are constantly seen to take place ? This question is too 
imposing to be passed over. Accordingly, the author 
devotes to it the whole of his Second Part, entitled, " Of 
the Sources of Illusion with Respect to the Relation of 
Cause and Effect." We avoid only one error, he tells 
us, in knowing that w^e have been deceived ; but we 
may avoid many errors in knowing how that one has 
deceived us. 

The sources of our error, in supposing causes to have 
an existence separate from the substances which produce 
any change, are of two kinds: first, certain arbitrary 
forms of language ; second, the very nature of things. 

Under the former head, the author first enumerates 
various metaphorical phrases, which have been employed 
to express the regularity of the antecedence and conse- 
quence of certain phenomena. We speak of events as 
connected or conjoined; and we speak of their bond of 
connection, as if there were something truly interme- 
diate. Now, so far as a bond is a sign of proximity^ 
so far the word is a very good metaphor to express causa- 
tion ; but inasmuch as it also implies something inter- 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 161 

mediate between two substances, the frequent use of this 
metaphor leads to the supposition that the bond con- 
necting two 6i?ew/!5 is also something intermediate ; and 
the author, with great acuteness, remarks, that our very 
ignorance of anything really intervening will only ren- 
der more mysterious what, obscure as it may be in our 
conception, we yet believe not the less to exist. Hence 
the mystery which is often attached to efficient causes, 
so called. 

Another way in which our language tends to deceive 
us in this respect, is the necessity which we are under of 
having some terms to express invariable sequence, and 
others to express casual sequence. Now it so happens 
that we have rigidly appropriated cause and effect to 
express the former, and priority, succession, and other 
terms for the latter. For convenience^ sake, we never 
confound them. We use the word cause so exclusively 
to express the great circumstance of invariableness, while 
the word sequence ^ or its concrete, to follow ^ is so often 
used to express mere casual succession, that they assume 
to our minds the appearance of essential dissimilarity, 
and even opposition, so that we revolt when we come to 
hear the words effect and sequence coupled as synony- 
mous ; a feeling which the addition of the important 
qualifying adjective invariable to the latter is not able 
wholly to remove. 

There is yet another form of verbal influence, in some 
of the most common, unavoidable modes of grammati- 
cal construction, which seems to have greatly favored 
the mistake in question. When, in compliance with the 
analytical forms of grammar, we speak continually of 
the powers of a substance, or of substances that have 

14* 



162 INQUIRT INTO THE RELATION 

certain powers, in the same manner as we are accus- 
tomed to speak of the birds of the air, of the fish of a 
river, of a park that has a large stock of deer, or of a 
town that has a multitude of inhabitants, we gradually 
learn to consider the power o/a substance, or the power 
which a substance possesses.^ as something different from 
the substance itself, inherent in it indeed, but inherent as 
something that may yet subsist separately. And here 
follows one of the author's very happiest, yet quite char- 
acteristic illustrations. Indeed, though but an illustra- 
tion, it carries in itself the appearance of a triumphant 
argument. In the ancient philosophy, he observes, this 
error extended to the notions both of form and power. 
In the case of form, however, though the illusion lasted 
for many ages, it did at length cease ; and no one now 
regards the figure of a body as anything but the body 
itself. It is probable that the similar illusion with re- 
spect to power, as something different from the sub- 
stances that are said to possess it, would in like manner 
have ceased, and given w^ay to juster views, if there had 
not been, in the very nature of things, many circumstances 
of still more powerful influence to favor the illusion in 
its origin, and subsequently to foster and perpetuate it. 

These circumstances, therefore, will next deserve our 
consideration. 

The first is the seeming latency of power, at times 
when it is said to be not exerted. We say that there is 
in cold, unkindled fuel a latent power of liquefying steel ; 
that a man has the power of moving his arm, whenever 
he chooses to move it ; and so forth. With these expres- 
sions, as popular and convenient forms of language, the 
author finds no fault ; but he argues at much length, and 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 163 

with considerable, though, as we think, just refinement, 
that they are utterly incompatible with the results of 
philosophical analysis. What is permanent in our im- 
agination of objects may be very far from being per- 
manent in the objects themselves which are imagined by 
us. If power, according to the reasoning in the first sec- 
tion of the First Part of this treatise, express nothing 
more than the changes which actually take place in sub- 
stances, there is no power in the intervals of what is 
termed exertion, because there is no change, nor ten- 
dency to change. The power, in short, is wholly con- 
tingent on certain circumstances, beginning with them, 
continuing with them, ceasing with them. In the inter- 
vals of recurrence of these circumstances, however, — or, 
to use the ordinary popular language, in the intervals of 
exertion of the supposed I'a.ient power of a substance, — 
we may think of the circumstances in which its presence 
is productive of change ; and knowing that, as often as 
these circumstances recur, the change too will recur, we 
may transfer to the substance, as if permanent in it, 
what is truly permanent only in our thought, which, in 
the absence of the circumstances of efficiency, imagines 
them present. But a very slight attention, surely, ought 
to be enough to convince us that it is by our imagination 
only we thus invest the substance with a character of 
continued power which does not belong to it. For 
example, a very high temperature is necessary for the 
liquefaction of steel by wood. Let them lie for ever in 
their natural state in the closest proximity, and the power 
of one over the other will be undeniably non-existent. 
When their circumstances become changed by the appli- 
cation of heat, at that very moment, and not till then, ex- 



164 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

ists the change of fusion, and consequently the power of 
fusion, which are therefore equally words without mean- 
ing where the necessary temperature is not present. Thus 
also with regard to the supposed latent power which a 
man has of moving his arm. Is the man who is now 
before us, who has his limbs all in a quiescent state, with 
no intention at all stirring in his mind, — is he, in fact, 
one and the very same complex being with the man 
who loills just previously to the motion of his arm ? In 
philosophical strictness, he clearly is not. The addition 
of the state of volition changes the compound individual, 
as much as the addition of heat to ice changes that indi- 
vidual substance to water ; only in the one case a visible 
alteration takes place before our eyes, and we give the 
changed substance a new name, and ascribe to it new 
powers ; whereas, in the other case, there is the same 
living body before us, at different moments, unaffected 
in its external conformation by the accession of a state 
of willing^ although, until that change takes place, the 
ascription to the living being of an actual power to raise 
its arm is confessedly absurd, since the arm does and 
must for ever lie still where the will is not. Our error 
lies in falsely ascribing a unity and sameness of physical 
character to substances in all the changes of circum- 
stances in which they can be placed, and in consequently 
referring to them in all circumstances what is only refer- 
rible in certain circumstances. Power, then, is not some- 
thing latent in substances, that exists whether exercised 
or not. What is termed the exercise of power is only 
another name for the presence of the circumstances in 
which, and in which alone, there is the power of which 
we speak ; as power not exerted is the absence of the 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 165 

very circumstances which are necessary to constitute 
power. Now, from this fallacy of believing that the 
powers which substances exhibit to us in certain situa- 
tions are latent at all times in those substances, and yet 
separate from them, arises the error of supposing that 
there are mysterious causes of all the phenomena we 
behold constantly latent in the substances around us, 
and yet distinct from the substances themselves. 

The author closes this Second Part by discussing one 
more great source of the error in question, namely, the 
imperfection of our senses. What at first seems to be 
the immediate cause of many of our sensations, we after- 
wards learn is only the first antecedent of a long train of 
antecedents and consequents, reaching from the outward 
object to our perceptive faculty, which were at first im- 
perceptible, but which some finer analysis evolves and 
presents to our search. Hence we are led habitually to 
suppose, that, amidst all the changes perceived by us, 
there is something latent which links them together, and, 
though concealed from our view at present, may be dis- 
covered perhaps by some analytic process that has not 
yet been employed. He who for the first time hears a 
bell rung, if he be ignorant of the theory of sound, will 
very naturally suppose that the stroke of the tongue on 
the bell is the cause of the sound which he hears. By 
subsequent analyses, however, he successively arrives at 
various intermediate agencies, — vibrations excited in 
the particles of the bell itself, — the elastic medium of the 
air, — the auditory nerve, — the whole mass of the brain. 
All these phenomena, from the imperfection of his senses, 
were taking place before him unobserved. He suspects, 
therefore, that in phenomena the most familiar to him 



166 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

there may be, in like manner, other changes that take 
place before him unobserved, the discovery of which 
is to be the discovery of a new order of causes. This 
constant search, this frequent detection of intermediate 
causes before unknown, irresistibly induces us to sup- 
pose that in every case whatever in which we behold the 
antecedent and consequent of a change, there lies be- 
tween them a connecting link, a separate cause, yet un- 
discovered. Yet it is evident, that, between the antece- 
dent and consequent which we at present know, w^e 
must at length come to some ultimate change, which is 
truly and immediately antecedent to the known effect. 
Do we gain anything by saying, that this last antece- 
cedent has the power or is the cause of producing the last 
effect? Is it not equivalent to saying simply that it 
uniformly precedes the effect? For the supposition of 
a bond or a cause in this last sequence is necessarily 
out of the case. The truth is, we see only parts of the 
great sequences that are taking place in nature. If our 
senses had originally enabled us to discern all the mi- 
nute changes which happen in bodies, if we had never 
discovered anything intermediate and unknown between 
two known events, a cause, in our notion of it, would 
have been very different from that mysterious unintelli- 
gible something, between entity and nonentity, which 
we now conceive it to be, or rather of which we vainly 
strive to form a conception ; and we should have found 
little difficulty in admitting it to be, what it simply and 
truly is, only another name for the immediate, invariable 
antecedent of an event. 

The object of the Third Part of this Inquiry is to 
explain under what circumstances the belief of power 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 167 

arises in the mind. What leads us to suppose that one 
thing is the necessary cause of another, or, in other 
words, that any particular antecedent, under the same 
circumstances, is, has been, and always will be followed 
by a particular change ? This is a highly curious intel- 
lectual fact ; the observation of a single moment often 
suggesting to us a belief which extends through all past 
and all future time. 

Power, as we have seen, necessarily involves the ex- 
pectation of a future change of some sort, that is to be 
exactly similar as often as the preceding circumstances 
are exactly similar. 

Is this expectation built on the ground of experience 
only ? Does it imply always, that the consequent has 
been known to us, as well as the antecedent ; or is there, 
in the appearance of the antecedent itself, before the 
attendant change has even been once observed, what 
might enable us to anticipate that change, as about to 
take place in instant succession ? The author decides this 
question entirely in favor of experience. He shows that 
we have no knowledge of the qualities of bodies a priori , 
and therefore no knowledge of the effects which they 
must produce. Nothing, for instance, in the appearance 
of iron or loadstone indicates to us that these two bodies 
will rush together on being made to approach each oth- 
er. Neither their color, nor their hardness, nor any other 
quality they possess, would suggest such an effect to our 
minds. Nor is there anything in the color, weight, and 
other sensible qualities of grains of mustard-seed and 
grains of gunpowder, which would enable us to predict 
that a spark, which falls and is quenched on a heap of 
the one, would, if it had fallen on a heap of the other, have 



168 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

kindled it into rapid and destructive conflagration. Nay, 
the most universal and fan:iiliar of all phenomena, those 
namely of gravitation, admit of no readier prophecy. 
We expect an object to fall to the ground, not from ex- 
amining its color, or shape, or hardness, but because we 
have frequently observed the event to happen. It is the 
same too with all the phenomena of the mind, except our 
instincts, where the knowledge is not in us, but in the 
great Being who formed us. Nothing a priori assures 
us that certain motions of our limbs will follow certain 
desires of our minds, or that the sight of wretchedness 
will cause in one breast no emotion, but will melt an- 
other into pity. Experience alone teaches us these and 
all other mental phenomena. 

But experience informs us only of the past^ while the 
relation of power is one that comprehends the past, the 
present, and the future. Something else, therefore, be- 
sides mere experience enters into that operation of the 
mind which adjudges to any antecedent in a sequence 
the attribute of power or causation. Is it by a process of 
reasoning, then, that we are enabled, as it were, to see with 
our mind what is invisible to our eyes, and thus to extend 
to an unexisting future an order of succession, which, 
as future, is confessedly, at the time of our prediction, 
beyond the sphere of our prediction ? The author main- 
tains that reasoning does not enter at all into the matter, 
but that it is nothing more than an intuitive and irresist- 
ible belief, which leads us to anticipate the recurrence of 
the same consequent, following the same antecedent, 
whenever the circumstances remain unaltered. When 
we say that B will follow A to-morrow, because A was 
followed by B to-day, we do not prove that the future will 



I 



I 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 169 

resemble the past, but we take for granted that the future 
will resemble the past. The past fact and the future 
fact are not inclusive the one of the other, and as little is 
the proposition which affirms the one, inclusive of the 
proposition which affirms the other. There is no logi- 
cal absurdity in supposing, that the one proposition may 
be true, and the other not true ; however difficult it may 
seem to us to believe the one, without believing the 
other. We may use i\\e forms of reasoning in such a 
case ; yet the belief will always be found to be involved 
in the very process. A chemist may say, that because 
a certain gas has just extinguished a lighted taper 
plunged into it, it therefore will extinguish it now. This 
may seem a fair logical enthymeme. But the major 
proposition is assumed without proof. It is taken for 
granted that a lighted taper plunged into the gas will 
always be quenched, which is the very thing that a sem- 
blance of reasoning is brought forward to prove. So 
when we say that a loadstone will continue to attract 
iron because it is magnetical, there is only a show, and 
not the reality, of reasoning. Belief, and belief unac- 
counted for, is all that is involved in the whole process ; 
because, as the very term magnetical implies the quality 
of attracting iron, we might as well have said that iron 
will attract iron because it will attract iron. Therefore 
reasoning has no concern with the operation of the mind 
in question. 

It is supposed by some, however, and especially by 
certain mathematical writers, that there are a few excep- 
tions to the conclusion just drawn. They would seem 
to contend, that there is a class of facts which are capa- 
ble of being inferred, even before observation or expe- 
ls 



170 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

rience, with complete and independent certainty of the 
result. The inertia of matter, and the phenomena of the 
composition of forces, and of equilibrium, have been 
urged as instances of this kind. The argument of the 
sufficient reason has been called in to demonstrate these 
facts, with a triumphant reliance on its perfect adequacy. 
The following is D'Alembert's argument to prove the 
inertia of matter as far as it is comprehended in the con- 
tinued rest of bodies. " A body at rest," he says, " must 
continue in that state till it be disturbed by some foreign 
cause; for it cannot determine itself to motion, since 
there is no reason why the motion should begin in one 
direction rather than another." * '• Since there is no rea- 
S07i^\' an assumption of the very thing to be proved. 
To be capable of asserting that there is no reason why 
the* motion should begin in one direction rather than 
another, is already to possess the largest conceivable 
measure of experience, to know all the conditions of ex- 
isting things, with all their mutual influences. What is 
or is not a sufficient reason, experience, and experience 
only, can show. We believe, indeed, that a body will 
not quit its state of rest, if all circumstances remain the 
same; for this, from the influence of that general law of 
thought which directs our physical anticipations of every 
kind, it is impossible for us not to believe. But if the 
irresistible force of this general faith be wholly laid out 
of account, and if, in affirming that it cannot quit its 
state of rest and move in one particular direction, our 
only reason be, that we see no cause why the body 
should not begin equally to move in some other direc- 

* Traitd de Dynamique. 



OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 171 

tion, we, in the very supposition that the motion in the 
particular direction is without a sufficient cause, beg the 
question which we yet profess to demonstrate. How 
can we presume that we know, at any moment, what 
physical circumstances may, or may not, be about to 
determine some particular motion of the body, since we 
are equally unacquainted with the efficacy or inefficacy 
of all the circumstances? And if we suppose ourselves 
to know previously the efficacy or sufficiency of some of 
these circumstances, and the inefficacy or insufficiency of 
the others, and must therefore know, before any reason- 
ing from the abstract principle, whether a change is or is 
not to take place, why do we ascribe to the result of the 
subsequent reasoning the knowledge which was essential 
for the understanding of its very conditions or terms? 

But our author stops not here. He shows that the 
argument of D'Alembert, allowing its force and legiti- 
macy in other respects, does not exhaust all the possible 
conditions of the case. Is 7'est the only state which a 
body can assume, even granting that there is no possibil- 
ity, because there is no reason, that it should move one 
way rather than another? Recollect that the argument 
is not about a mathematical point, or an elementary 
atom, but about the bodies which actually exist in nature 
around us. Why, then, may not a change take place 
in the quiescent mass, similar to what we term explo- 
sion when a mass of gunpowder, previously at rest, is 
kindled? Here there is no particular motion of the ele- 
mentary particles, east, west, north, or south, but motion 
in all these directions. 

The author attacks with equal success a similar argu- 
ment of D'Alembert with respect to the other case of 



172 INQUIRr INTO THE RELATION 

inertia in bodies, nannely, their continued motion when 
no foreign force interferes to put them to rest. 

So also with regard to the uniformity of their motion ; 
when it is attempted to be demonstrated that "the mo- 
tion must be uniform, because a body cannot accelerate 
nor retard its own motion," the very point in dispute is 
obviously taken for granted. 

The author wishes it carefully to be remembered, that 
he does not deny the inertia, nor the other properties and 
phenomena of matter, which have been attempted to be 
made the subjects of abstract demonstration ; on the 
contrary, they appear to him as indubitable as any other 
instances of the regularity of events. He only objects to 
our supposed power of predicting these facts indepen- 
dently of experience. 

By far the largest section in the book is devoted to 
strictures on several demonstrations of this kind, given by 
D'Alembert, Euler, and other mathematicians, who, we 
apprehend, have been pressed somewhat too hardly by 
our acute and ingenious author. It should be recollected, 
we think, that these writers did not aim at quite such 
ultimate, abstract, and metaphysical statements of the 
case, as alone would justify the torrents of argumenta- 
tion which are here poured down upon them. They 
were simply mathematicians. They were engaged in 
constructing and writing systems of mixed mathematics, 
in which some general views of matter must necessarily 
be given, although the principal object of their treatises 
was only the measurement of abstract quantities. To 
preserve a scientific form throughout, and indeed to lay 
a foundation for the whole train of their mathematical 
reasoning, it was natural that they should throw into 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 173 

theorems, and definitions, and forms of demonstration, 
against the delusive solemnity of which our author in- 
veighs, some of those general laws and properties of 
matter which are made known to us by universal expe- 
rience. Even in doing this, we think, they tacitly ap- 
pealed to experience, and w^ould have revolted as much 
as Dr. Brown himself at the idea of establishing abstract 
propositions, independent of the knowledge we already 
have of the external world. Nor are w^e much afraid 
that the apparent solemnity and formality of those 
demonstrations have deluded so many persons as Dr. 
Brown imagines, into the error which he is combating. 
D'Alembert would probably have been willing to let the 
afore-cited argument run thus : " Since there is no reason 
that ive knoiv o/ why," &c. This little clause would have 
rested the whole matter on experience, and have ren- 
dered Dr. Brown's lengthened strictures entirely unne- 
cessary. Now we venture to say, that the French writer 
had a tacit condition of this kind in his mind, and sup- 
posed that every one of his readers had it. Little pre- 
pared was he to expect, that the thunders of chemistry 
would be brought to bear on an argument, of which the 
application was meant to be confined solely and entirely 
to the measurement of weight and motion. The demon- 
strations of this nature given by all these writers were 
good enough for their purpose ; they were never intended 
to be applied in any form whatever beyond the systems 
to which they were originally attached, and Dr. Brown 
himself has not uttered a hint that the mathematical 
superstructures erected upon them sustain the least in- 
jury from the unsoundness or incompleteness of the 
foundations. We are willing to allow, that the reason- 
is =* 



174 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

ings ill question are merely verbal ; that they are built 
on that very experience of which they seem to preclude 
the necessity ; and that they partake perhaps largely of 
that display which is characteristic of the style of the 
modern Continental mathematicians. But that they 
were ever brought forward under the least pretension of 
assuming ultimate metaphysical truths, we no more be- 
lieve, than that the subsequent long and intricate demon- 
strations founded upon them were intended as models of 
oratorical argument. We protest against these quixotic 
digressions, in which writers in one science try by their 
own principles the writers in another. What would be 
thought of an astronomer, who should go far out of his 
way to overwhelm with confusion the compiler of an 
Ephemeris, for heading his columns, in defiance of the 
demonstrated truth of the Copernican system, with sun 
rises and su7i sets? Had our author shown in a few 
words, as he might have done, and in a passing way, 
that the language of mathematicians, if received without 
due caution, in its whole metaphysical extent, is not 
strictly true, he would have fully answered his object in 
the treatise before us, and furnished a very appropriate 
and sufficient illustration of the necessity of experience 
in predicting the usual phenomena of matter. But to 
devote eighty pages of unrelenting and triumphant ratio- 
cination against mathematicians, and that too in the 
forced character of metaphysicians, was by far too much. 
We would rather have seen the same space expended on 
those glaring faults of style, that carelessness, that ob- 
scurity, that pomp and exuberance of demonstration 
where all is plain, that obstinate silence or oracular brev- 
ity on points of intrinsic difficulty, and, in short, that 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 175 

total deficiency of didactic skill,* which have made the 
elementary treatises of so many mathematicians but 
sealed books to numberless students, who have reluc- 
tantly and desperately sunk into the mortifying conclu- 
sion that they were not born for the mathematics, when 
the truth of the case was they were not born to under- 
stand writers who studied not, or knew not, how to ex- 
press themselves. 

We have before hinted at our author's doctrine which 
makes intuitive and irresistible belief to be the basis, after 
experience, of our idea of causation. His view of it is 
this : whatever antecedent we have observed to have 
immediately and uniformly preceded any consequent, 
we cannot possibhj avoid believing will precede it again 
and always, when placed in exactly the same circum- 
stances. This belief is just as natural to us as to per- 
ceive external things when they are presented to our 
senses. The following extract contains the amount of 
the argument brought to prove this point : — 

" Perception, Reasoning, Intuition, are the only sources of 
belief; and if, even after experience, — for experience is in every 
case necessary, — when we believe the similarity of future se- 
quences to the past which we have observed, it is not from per- 
ception, nor from reasoning, that our confidence is derived ; we 
must ascribe it to the only other remaining source. We certainly 

* It is our most serious belief, that a new chapter is wanted in Campbell's 
Philosophy, and other treatises of Rhetoric, which shall prescribe rules for 
writing works on the mathematics. Thus, one rule might be, not to sum up 
the doctrine of surds in the most concise manner possible, and as if the object 
were only to refresh the memories of veteran mathematicians, while pages 
are devoted to the easiest and most obvious portions of the doctrine oi plus 
and minus. 



176 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

do not perceive power, in the objects around us, or in any of our 
internal feelings ; for perception, as a momentary feeling, is 
limited to what is, and does not extend to what is yet to be : and, 
as certainly, we do not discover it by reasoning; for, independent- 
ly of our irresistible belief itself, there is no argument that can 
be urged to show why the future should exactly resemble the 
past, rather than be different from it in any way. We believe 
the uniformity, in short, not because we can demonstrate it to 
others or to ourselves, but because it is impossible for us to 
disbelieve it. The belief is in every instance intuitive ; and in- 
tuition does not stand in need of argument, but is quick and irre- 
sistible as perception itself." — p. 314. 

Another of the author's finest passages is the follow- 
ing, which is brought to defend and illustrate his peculiar 
views of this subject, and closes the Third Part of the 
work. It will evince, moreover, how far his speculations 
were fronn those atheistical tendencies of which they have 
been suspected. 

'• That, with a providential view to the circumstances in which 
we were to be placed, our Divine Author has endowed us with 
certain instinctive tendencies, is as true as that he has endowed 
us with reason itself. We feel no astonishment in considering 
these, when we discover the manifest advantage that arises from 
them ; and of all the instincts with which we could be endowed, 
there is none that seems, I will not say so advantageous merely, 
but so indispensable, for the very continuance of our being, as 
that which points out to us the future, if I may venture so to 
speak, before it has already begun to exist. It is wonderful, in- 
deed, — for what is not wonderful ? — that the internal revela- 
tion which this belief involves should be given to us like a voice 
of ceaseless and unerring prophecy. But when we consider who 
it was that formed us, it would, in truth, have been more wonder- 
ful if the mind had been so differently constituted that the belief 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 177 

had not arisen : because, in that case, the phenomena of nature, 
however regularly arranged, would have been arranged in vain ; 
and that Almighty Being, who, by enabling us to anticipate the 
physical events that are to ensue, has enabled us to provide for 
them, would have left the creatures, for whose happiness he has 
been so bounteously provident, to perish, ignorant and irresolute, 
amid elements that seemed waiting to obey them, — and victims 
of confusion, in the very midst of all the harmonies of the uni- 
verse." — p. 319. 

The Fourth and last Part is employed in an examina- 
tion of Mr. Hume's Theory of our Belief of the Relation 
of Cause and Effect. If our readers will lend their atten- 
tion to a few succeeding statements, they will perhaps 
find that clear ideas of Mr. Hume's philosophy have not 
hitherto prevailed, and that Dr. Brown's system of Cause 
and Effect, although corresponding with a portion of Mr. 
Hume's, yet departs as widely as possible from it on 
every exceptionable point. We shall take considerable 
pains to set these assertions in a convincing light; — 
both because we regret to have learned, that an opin- 
ion was not long since entertained, by most illustrious 
authority in England, that Dr. Brown had been endeav- 
oring to set up a theory of causation, which was ill un- 
derstood by himself, and which differed not materially 
from the theory of Hume, — and because, as our au- 
thor is now laid where he cannot reply to a surmise 
against the soundness and correctness of his writings, 
we would try, with at least as fond a reverence as 
strangers may be supposed capable of feeling, to efface 
every stain that may unjustly attach to his literary repu- 
tation. 

Mr. Hume commenced the statement of his views on 



178 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

this subject by reviving some hints that former writers 
had suggested as to the doctrine of a conjunction^ rather 
than a connection, of the events that are constantly suc- 
ceeding one another in the world of nature around us. 
In this simple doctrine, how much alarm soever a mis- 
statement or a misapprehension of it may have once 
excited, there was not the semblance of a dangerous 
tendency. It still left the existence of every object and 
every event in nature as real and as certain as they were 
before. In resolving those incessant changes, that are 
everywhere happening, into a long train of antecedents 
and consequents, it did not deny, but rather confirmed, 
the necessity of an antecedent for every consequent, and 
thus furnished a strong argument for the existence of 
some great First Cause, — some necessary antecedent 
of all the effects in the universe. It still left to this 
great invisible Being the ability to will into existence 
every substance that is, and the wisdom of arranging 
that eternal continuity of successive phenomena, which 
is all the time developing such astonishing results of 
order, harmony, beauty, and happiness. There was 
nothing truly sceptical about this doctrine, if by sceptical 
we mean any quality of an opinion which fairly leads to 
an irreligious conclusion. The question related purely 
to a physical matter of fact, which, in w^iatsoever way 
decided, leaves all the great truths of natural and re- 
vealed religion as sacredly guarded as they were before. 
As for Philosophy, she certainly had a right to demand the 
evidence for that supposed invisible link which connects 
each change with the substance that produces it. On 
the absence of that evidence, Hume, trusting to the evi- 
dence of the senses which God had given him, and per- 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 179 

ceiving by those senses nothing more than a succession 
of changes, advances his leading doctrine, that we can 
have no other idea of causation, than a bare precession 
of one event to another, without involving anything that 
intervenes between the antecedent and consequent. Dr. 
Brown, perceiving the strong ground of nature and the 
senses on which Hume stood, embraces the doctrine, 
states and defends it at much length in the First Part 
of this treatise, insists that every new link which is dis- 
covered between the two parts of a sequence, such, for 
instance, as an inflammable gas between the heat of 
yon candle and the combustion of this pen, becomes only 
a new unlinked antecedent to the visible effect ; — and 
not only this, but in his Second Part assigns several 
satisfactory reasons w^hy the world should have been so 
long deceived in imagining, and giving a name to, a 
nonentity. 

The next doctrine of Hume was equally free from the 
character of scepticism. It was, that the human mind 
has no capacity of predicting, previously to experience, 
the particular consequents that will result from any given 
antecedent, or, in other words, that we are unable of our- 
selves to divine any of the powders of nature. It required 
but little reflection to adopt this opinion, which, to our 
minds, is perfectly independent of the former doctrine, 
and might be true, whatever theory of causation be so. 
Accordingly, Dr. Brown, as v/e have seen, in this Third 
Part, maintains that experience alone is the ground of 
those predictions which we are every day forming of the 
future effects of objects now existing around us. Thus 
far our two philosophers go together. But from this point 
they separate ; they diverge wddely and irrecoverably. 



180 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

Having hitherto agreed with each other, when they come 
to ask, On ivhat principle of the human mind we predict, 
after experience, the consequences of causes ? Dr. Brown 
answers the question, By intuitive and irresistible belief. 
On thrusting this pen into the candle's blaze, we believe 
it will burn ; but we arrive at this belief, not from any- 
process of reasoning, but because, having before seen the 
same effect proceed from the same cause, %ve cannot help 
believing it. This simple and clear statement of an ulti- 
mate fact, so consonant to the most approved rules of 
the Baconian philosophy, terminates Dr. Brown's system. 
And whether his system be right or wrong, we do ear- 
nestly crave leave to insist, that, if ever there was one 
which deserved to be called intelligible, compact, con- 
sistent, simple, it is this. Even before Dr. Brown wrote, 
we were confessedly all in the dark about causation. 
He does not pretend to reveal the mystery of it to us, 
but only to check our impatient and unavailing strug- 
gles after a figment of our own fancy, to exhibit the 
limits of the human mind on this subject, and to con- 
fine our reasoning and imagination entirely to the vis- 
ible side of the curtain of our existence, on which are 
wrought no other figures, nay, out of which peeps not a 
thread, but those of experience. If the author himself 
was so unfortunate as not to understand his own system, 
he certainly has had the signally good success of causing 
some readers — humble, and without authority, we al- 
low, but as conscientiously attentive to the train of his 
reasonings as their capacities would admit — to compre- 
hend it to their most entire satisfaction. Nor, until we 
find some hint in his writings, or hear of some declara- 
tion that passed his lips, revealing a consciousness of the 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 181 

unintelligibility of his speculations, can we possibly 
admit or conceive that he did not understand them 
himself. 

Let us now turn to Mr. Hume, and see if he has re- 
ally gained in our author an implicit and unqualified 
follower. 

Instead of allowing, or perhaps perceiving, the force 
and authority of that great principle of intuitive belief 
which terminates Dr. Brown's speculations, he lays ex- 
traordinary stress on the following maxim, which, in 
hands as dexterous as his own, may lead into the most 
licentious, extravagant, and dangerous scepticism. 

" In all reasonings from experience, there is a step 
taken by the mind, which is not supported by any argu- 
ment or process of the understanding." 

At the enunciation of this portentous proposition, the 
mind involuntarily stands aghast. All the realities and 
well-grounded expectations of life seem to be sinking, 
like fragments of floating ice, under our feet. The truth 
of the proposition itself you cannot deny; that is, if you 
allow that the business of life is carried on by " reason- 
ings from experience." It is but too evident that from 
no quarter on earth have we got the information that the 
future will resemble the past, which is the assumed step 
that Hume refers to. Hence one feels that he has no 
right to introduce that assumption into any reasoning 
which is to guide his future operations. The conse- 
quence is, he may proceed to beat his head against a 
rock, with all the calmness in the world, and still be a very 
reasonable man ; and why ? Because he has no right 
to assume that the future will resemble the past I and 
therefore the rock may, as likely as not, meet his head 

16 



182 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

with the softness of a pillow of down. A wanton assas- 
sin may be justified in rushing out of his den, and stab- 
bing a whole virtuous population one by one through the 
body ; because, if he supposes that his dagger will sever 
their souls from their mortal tenements, he most illogi- 
cally assumes a step in his reasoning for which he has no 
authority, namely, that the future will resemble the past. 
Not to multiply examples of this kind, which must press 
on the imaginations of our readers as numerously as on 
our own, we will yet instance only religion, which, by 
the magical waving of this dialectic wand, is made to 
evaporate into air, along with all other solid realities. 
For why should you rely on any one attribute of Jeho- 
vah, — why should you trust in his mercy, hope for his 
bounty, pray for his blessing, nay, expect his existence 
or your own one moment longer, — since in so doing you 
assume that step for which you have no imaginable 
authority, which is, that the future will resemble the 
past? 

This is the slough to which Hume would conduct us. 
It seems a cruel fatality, that the man who has taken off 
the bandage from our eyes, by which we might have 
been betrayed into the midst of this miry scepticism, and 
who has shown us the rock on which we may safely 
and surely rest our foot far this side of the disastrous 
results of the maxim of Mr. Hume, should have been 
suspected of coinciding in the main with that insidi- 
ous philosopher. Brown asserts that we expect an ef- 
fect to follow any given cause, or the future to resem- 
ble the past, only in consequence of an irresistible and 
intuitive belief which God has wrought into our very 
constitutions, and which we can no more avoid than we 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 183 

can avoid perceiving a visible object when we open our 
eyes. Hence, the mind of itself assumes no step in the 
above-mentioned reasonings, if reasonings there be ; it is 
God himself who assumed it, when he so created us that 
there should be a perfect correspondence between our 
own minds and the onward progress of rolling events 
around us. From this view of the subject, not one dan- 
gerous or shocking consequence flows. It utterly ex- 
cludes the idea of an arbitrary or unappointed arrange- 
ment of things, since we find, in millions of instances, 
events to take place according to our expectations, and 
in the few instances where they do not, it is in conse- 
quence of the error of our expectations, arising from a 
limited experience. So far, moreover, from its involv- 
ing scepticism, it is quite plain that it justifies and en- 
courages a universal and confident belief, as directly op- 
posite to scepticism as pole to pole. And as to exciting 
any distrust towards the Deity, or any irreligious affec- 
tions whatever, we have already learned in the beauti- 
ful passage which closes the abstract of the Third Part 
of this book, that, in impressing on our minds this una- 
voidable, this instinctive belief, the Deity has manifested 
for us a signal tenderness, which must touch every sus- 
ceptible heart. When we recollect, that, were it not for 
this truly vital principle in our mental constitution, we 
must every moment be liable to be crushed by the masses 
and powers that are resistlessly and incessantly in action 
all around us ; that we must be constantly exposed to 
being caught in the wheels of that mighty machinery, 
whose operations we can now intuitively predict ; or that 
we must sit still and starve amidst this world of plenty 
and joy into which we are born ; we may literally say of 



184 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

our Creator, with Moses, As an eagle stirreth up her nest^ 
flutter eth over her youngs spreadeth abroad her ivings, 
taketh them, bear eth them on her wings, so the Lord hath 
condescended to take care of his creature man. 

Yet Mr. Hume, writhing beneath the tortures of his 
own absurd conclusions, sets about with all his meta- 
physical might to extricate himself from them, although 
in so doing he only wanders still further from the simple 
upward path of Dr. Brown. 

Instead of resorting at once, with our author, to an 
ultimate principle of our mental constitution, an intuitive 
belief, which would have untied the knot that puzzled 
him, he makes the affair of the gratuitous step in our rea- 
sonings from experience a very intricate process, which 
he would explain to the following effect, as summed up 
in the Inquiry. 

" When two objects have been frequently observed in succes- 
sion, the mind passes readily from the idea of one to the idea of 
the other : from this tendency to transition, and from the greater 
vividness of the idea thus more readily suggested, there arises a 
belief of the relation of cause and effect between them ; the tran- 
sition in the mind itself being the impression, from which the 
idea of the necessary connection of the objects, as cause and effect, 
isderived." — p. 391. 

We can afford but some very short commentaries on 
this passage, which will, however, be sufficient to demon- 
strate its astonishing absurdity, and will still further 
evince that Hume and Dr. Brown do not go hand in 
hand so affectionately together. 

1. Hume begins, " When two objects have been fre- 
quently observed in succession," &c. He here implies, 
that we do not expect that one thing is to be the cause 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 185 

of another, or that the antecedent will again produce the 
consequent, or, in other words, that the future will resem- 
ble the past, until after repeated observations of the se- 
quence. But our belief arises on a single observation, 
according to Dr. Brown, who instances a vast number of 
cases in which there can be no doubt, such as the sting- 
ing of a bee for the first time, or the smell of a new- 
flower, which w^e immediately believe will in all future 
time produce the same effects. Our author reconciles to 
his principle those cases which seem to contradict it ; 
but we must not stop to show how. The difference be- 
tween the two writers is our principal object here. 

2. " The mind," continues Mr. Hume, " passes readily 
from the idea of the one to the idea of the other." There 
is something so hypothetical, so unphilosophical, in this 
assumption, that we need not contrast it with our au- 
thor's simple, open theory oi immediate and intuitive belief. 
Surely there is some difference between stating an ulti- 
mate intellectual operation, as Brown has done, without 
attempting to explain it, and gratuitously representing 
the mind as skipping backward and forward from idea to 
idea, as a bird does from twig to twig. 

3. One would have thought the preceding assertion of 
Mr. Hume quite shadowy enough ; but next comes a 
statement, which is evanescent and impalpable as the 
shadow of a shade. " From this tendency to transition, 
and from the greater vividness of the idea thus more 
readily suggested, there arises a belief of the relation of 
cause and effect between them." Whoever can grasp 
the meaning of this tendency^ and then combine it, some- 
how or other, wdth the vividness of an idea, so that the 
union of the two together shall make up the operation 

16* 



186 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

of belief, must be blessed with a truly metaphysical ge- 
nius. Even on the supposition that the statement is 
clear and intelligible, our author demonstrates its falsity 
by a long course of arguments, combating particularly 
the error that the vividness of an idea is essential even to 
the strongest belief. This is at least a thii'd minor differ- 
ence. 

4. " The transition in the mind itself being the im- 
pression, from which the idea of the necessary connection 
of the objects, as cause and effect, is derived." A transi- 
tion in the mind, an impression on the mind I — a singular 
absurdity ! Yet this is the very keystone of the theory 
which would explain our expectations of the future, or 
our belief in causation, on any other principle than in- 
tuitive belief. 

We leave this passage now to the reflections and the 
judgment of our readers, and will not attempt to abstract 
more copiously the hundred pages in which our author 
exposes its fallacies, its assumptions, its absurd conse- 
quences on the one hand, its inconclusiveness on the 
other, and the various theories and considerations brought 
to defend it. The whole topic may perhaps be regarded 
as an excrescence on the simple exposition of the theory 
before us. Indeed, the author himself somewhere apolo- 
gizes for its introduction, by observing that Mr. Hume's 
opinions on the subject have had so powerful an in- 
fluence on this abstruse but very important part of phys- 
ical science, that it would be injustice to his merits, to 
consider them only with incidental notice, in a work that 
is chiefly reflective of the lights which he has given. 

Before dismissing our author, we shall venture to offer 
one or two strictures on the leading doctrine and defi- 
nition contained in his book. 



OF CAtTSE AND EFFECT. 1$7 

We apprehend that both he and Mr. Hume have over- 
looked an essential element which enters into our idea 
of a cause, and which, if introduced into their definition, 
would at least have made it more easily comprehended 
and received. A cause Dr. Brown defines to be that ivhich 
immediately precedes any change^ &c. This definition 
involves only immediate succession^ or proximity in time. 
Is not contiguity in place equally a part of our notion of 
causation ? Must not the antecedent in our idea be lo- 
cally present with the consequent ? It is an axiom, 
which, at its very first announcement, everybody — 
child, peasant, philosopher — believes and acknowl- 
edges, that no power can act where it is not present. 
It is true we have an idea of remote causes, as well as 
proximate causes. But every remote cause is supposed 
to act upon something immediately near it, and then 
that something to act upon another as immediately 
near, and so on, till we arrive in idea at the proximate 
cause, which, to produce the last effect, is believed to 
be near it, even to actual contiguity. We think that 
the omission of this idea has led Dr. Brown, as well as 
Mr. Hume, into considerable embarrassment, when they 
came to apply their principle to the innumerable coexist- 
ing sequences of phenomena, which at every moment are 
taking place throughout nature. They have both left 
that point in an unsatisfactory state, Mr. Hume to Dr. 
Brown, and Dr. Brown to us. If nothing more than im- 
mediate precession in time is admitted into our idea of 
causation, then why is not the acorn, which is planted 
at the same time w^ith the cherry-stone, regarded as 
the cause of the fruit-tree, as much as it is of the oak ? 
Admit into your definition the necessary circumstance 



188 INQUIRY INTO THE RELATION 

of contiguity in place, as well as immediate prece- 
dence in time, and you escape this objection. We 
are aware that Dr. Brown has in a manner provided 
against it by a somewhat cumbrous and not very easily 
comprehended paraphrase. After beginning his defini- 
tion, by declaring a cause to be that which immediately 
precedes any change, he adds, and ivhich, existing' at any 
time in similar cii'cumstances, has been always^ and luill 
he always^ immediately followed by a similar change. 
We would not exclude this portion of the definition, but 
would only submit, whether the introduction of conti- 
guity of place as well as proximity in time would not 
have imparted to the definition more precision, univer- 
sality, and tangibility. 

That this circumstance of contiguity always forms 
part of our strict and simple notion of causation, the 
more we reflect upon it, the more we are inclined to 
believe. We wish, therefore, that Dr. Brown had called 
in this idea,* and wrought it up throughout his treatise 
in his own admirable manner. It is possible that, in so 
wishing, we do not look round and through the subject 
with the comprehensive survey of thorough-going the- 
orists. Yet we cannot but think, that the proposed im- 
provement would have materially assisted him in keep- 
ing his main object in view, and prevented many labori- 
ous circumlocutions in fortifying his positions against a 
throng of difficulties and objections, that perpetually 
arose upon him as he advanced. 



* When our author speaks of the term bond of connection as being adopted 
to express proximity in time, it is remarkable that he did not perceive how- 
much more appropriate it is to imply proximity in place. 



OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 189 

Our author, in the definition before us, seems to us to 
have revealed just so much of the truth as is conveyed 
in telling a man in what parallel of latitude his ship is 
sailing on the ocean. Had he brought in the circum- 
stance of contiguity in place, we think that this would 
have been like drawing his line of longitude ; it would 
have reduced the difficulty to a specific point, and given 
to our floating, mysterious idea of a cause a fixed, in- 
telligible, and definite relation. Observe, too, that the 
objectionable notion of an invisible link would be equally 
excluded by this as by the other form. 

What then would be our definition ? A cause is that 
which immediately precedes and is immediately present at 
any change. If very hardly pressed, w-e might call in 
the closing phraseology of our author's definition. Yet 
we think we could do without it. 

"Will our readers briefly analyze this our definition 
along with us ? Think of any change, any phenomenon 
whatsoever. Think now of an object or event which is 
in so close proximity to it as to exclude the contact of 
everything else existing. If this object or event exist 
in this closest contiguity immediately previous to the 
change, w^hat else is your idea of a cause ? 

N. A. Review, 1821. 



RExAIINISCENCES OF A NEW-ENGLAND 
CLERGYMAN AND HIS LADY, 

LIVmG AT THE CLOSE OF THE LAST CENTURY. 



Imagine, nearly fifty years ago, a youthful widow left 
with four small children in the town of Gloucester, at 
the head of the harbor at Cape Ann, one of the arms 
enclosing Massachusetts Bay. Her husband had been a 
very successful merchant in that place, but had recently 
died insolvent, his insolvency arising from the capture of 
several vessels by the French in our war of 1798 with 
that nation. She had heard of an excellent academy in 
the township of Atkinson, New Hampshire, not far from 
the boundary line between that State and Massachusetts. 
Thither she resolved to carry her son, her " only son," the 
writer of these memoirs, who was then about seven years 
of age, — not as Abraham carried Isaac, to the altar of 
sacrifice, but with the purpose of obtaining for him the 
blessing of an education. She had learned much of the 
parental and benevolent character of the minister of the 
town and his lady, whose house was filled with boarders 
in attendance at the academy, of which, however, the 
clergyman was not the preceptor, but only the leading 
patron and trustee. So, one summer morning, she leaves 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 191 

the sea-shore with a horse and chaise, taking her boy as 
her only companion, over an untried and intricate road 
of forty miles. She passes through the pleasant town of 
Ipswich, so quiet at that time, that the whimpering of 
their chaise's whippletree, and the occasional hammer- 
ing of the village blacksmith in the sultry noon, were the 
only noises which they heard ; and then, leaving New- 
buryport far to the right, arrives late in the day at the 
beautiful village of Haverhill, on the Merrimac, with its 
noble bridge over the river, and situated on the northern 
boundary of Massachusetts. Six miles farther north, 
through a perpetually ascending region, conduct her to 
the wished-for mansion of the venerable and hospitable 
clergyman. Here she tells her story of sorrow, declares 
that she must return the next day to seek by trade a 
livelihood for herself and her little ones, confesses that 
she owns not at present a single dollar for their support, 
and waits to learn the determination of her reverend 
new acquaintance. The answer is not long in coming. 
" Madam," said he, in tones which still ring musically 
in the ears of the writer, and with a cordial smile which 
seems to shine on the memory as but of yesterday, — 
" Madam, leave your little boy with us. He shall be one 
of our family, and enter the academy. If Providence 
blesses your efforts to secure for yourself a livelihood, 
well and good ; you may remunerate us in the usual 
way. But if you are doomed to struggle with adversity, 
be not anxious about your son ;' here you may be sure 
that he shall have a home and an education." The 
charming though elderly lady of the clergyman, who sat 
silently knitting in the corner of the room during the 
conversation, with an elegant cap on her head, which 



192 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

won my boyish admiration, and a more attractive coun- 
tenance beneath it, smiled all along in perfect approval 
of her husband's generous proposal, and closed the inter- 
view by a few kind and precious words of assent and 
comfort. Romantic as this incident may seem, since 
the widow had not the slightest claim of any kind on 
her new-found friends, nor had even her name been 
known to them until that very day, yet is the relation 
literally true. 

The next morning, the stranger, with a face beaming 
with joy, eyes glistening with tears, and a heart filled 
with gratitude and hope, re-ascended the chaise to pur- 
sue her homeward journey alone. Such instances of 
female enterprise are not at all uncommon in New Eng- 
land, even at the present day. The subsequent exertions 
of our adventuress in trade were abundantly favored by 
that benignant Being who, throughout the volume of 
revelation, so frequently and tenderly promises his espe- 
cial protection to the widow and the fatherless. During 
the space of ten or twelve years, every one of her children 
enjoyed, for a greater or less period, the advantages of 
the family and the institution at which she had placed 
her son, and she ever regarded it as one of the most 
ch^ished blessings of her life, that she was amply en- 
abftd to remunerate her disinterested benefactor. To 
him, and to all connected with him, let us now return. 
I will do what may be in my power, before we part, to 
make my readers well acquainted at least with good old 
" Sir Peabody " and his lady. 

The township of Atkinson is one of those numerous 
subdivisions, of about six miles square, into which nearly 
the whole of New England is parcelled. The inhabit- 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 193 

ants of each township form a distinct corporation, all its 
fiscal, police, and general affairs being conducted by a 
body called the Selectmen, usually consisting of three 
persons elected at an annual town-meeting, which as- 
sembles at the church, or rather the meeting-house. At- 
kinson, though far below the summit of that granite 
territory which swells gradually upward from the Merri- 
mac River until it reaches the Monadnock and White 
Mountains, still occupies a most commanding position. 
Looking round on its immense horizon to the south, 
you might easily fancy yourself on the central apex of 
the land. With an ordinary telescope you can discern 
steeples some fifteen or twenty miles distant, counting 
more than a dozen of them within the whole field, while 
those of Haverhill, only six miles removed, seem lying 
comparatively at your feet ; and when a warm, gentle 
south wind prevails, they send up the faint yet clear 
tones of their distant evening-bells, so magically soft, 
that you know not whether they are floating from earth 
or heaven. To the north, or back of the settlement, ap- 
pear ascending forests and cleared lands, with here and 
there a distant steeple, until the eye rests at last on the 
shadowy outline, scarcely distinguishable from the sky 
itself, of the Grand Monadnock Mountains. What an 
object for the daily contemplation of an enthusiastic, 
imaginative youth ! How they speak to him of eternal 
solidity and repose I How they grow into and become 
a part of the stamp of his being, their dim and far-off 
grandeur shedding a mystic influence on his soul, which 
no remoteness of years or situation can efface! When, 
after dwelling for a long time in some level country, 
he again sees their forms or similar ones near the hori- 

17 



194 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

zon, he thrills with the sensation of a new return to 
life. 

There is in Atkinson nothing, properly speaking, like 
a village. No stream collects there a factory's little 
population on its banks. The houses are scattered over 
the whole domain, generally within sight of each other. 
Every variety of architecture prevails, from the low red 
cottage, to the ambitious, white-painted, and very siza- 
ble mansion ; there being, I presume, even here, as in 
other parts of New England, aspiring souls, who, when 
about to erect a dwelling-house, might possibly go by 
night and measure the exact length of their neighbor's 
residence, for the pleasure of boasting that their own 
should be six inches larger. The gable-roofed meeting- 
house, without a steeple, and painted in fading white, 
stood on an elevation which commanded a large part of 
the town. At the distance of half a mile on one side 
appeared the academy, of more modern and ambitious 
pretensions, and surmounted by a well-proportioned 
cupola. The township was set off from some adjoin- 
ing settlements, and incorporated a few years before the 
Revolution, receiving its name from the Hon. Theodore 
Atkinson, at that day one of the leading men in New 
Hampshire. The population has been nearly stationary 
for half a century, and an idea of its fixed character may 
be conceived from the fact, that in 1830 it amounted to 
555, and in 1840 to 557. Thus Atkinson seems to 
stand like some individual being, and we may well sup- 
pose certain original peculiarities to be developed from 
this unchanging and undisturbed position. There are, I 
believe, few smaller tow^ns in the State. The gazetteers 
represent the ground as uneven in its surface, but as 



RE/. .STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 195 

being of a superior quality and well cultivated, and state 
that the cultivation of the apple has received nnuch at- 
tention there; a fact to which I can testify by many 
savory juvenile reminiscences. The gazetteers also men- 
tion a remarkable floating island on a bottomless pond, 
near the outskirts of the town ; but they do not mention 
the large and delicious cranberries growing upon it, 
which concur with the very danger of the enterprise in 
tempting many an adventurous youth to explore its per- 
ilous recesses. Hard by the meeting-house stood, and I 
trust stands yet, the modest but not inelegant mansion 
of the pastor, — rather the handsomest, perhaps, in the 
whole town, — with a neat court-yard before it, sur- 
rounded by lilacs and roses, various snow-white articles 
of apparel surmounting the fence on every washing-day, 
and with a small fruit and flower garden extending still 
in front of that, on the opposite side of the road. This 
house will be the central point of interest in our sketches. 
Few private dwellings in our country, I imagine, have 
sent out more genial and extensive influences, or have 
gathered to themselves a richer abundance of delightful 
recollections and elevated sympathies. 

Its occupant and proprietor. Rev. Stephen Peabody, 
possessed a character so remarkable, and in some re- 
spects so unique, as to deserve being rescued from gath- 
ering oblivion. He was a native of Andover, Massachu- 
setts, ten miles to the south of Atkinson. He graduated 
at Harvard College in 1769, in the same class with the 
celebrated Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons, and with 
Colonel Scammell, a brave soldier and early victim of 
hostile treachery in our Revolution. Mr. Peabody de- 
lighted, like a true son of his own and of every other 



196 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

Alma Mater, to take down his College Catalogue from 
the nail behind the door, on which it hung with the 
Farmer's Almanac, and entertain all who would listen 
with the individual biographies and characters of his 
classmates. He would sooner dispense with his humble 
salary (to be hereafter mentioned) than fail of his an- 
nual visit to Boston and Cambridge during every Com- 
mencement week. It was customary, up to the time of 
the Revolution, to arrange in the printed Harvard Col- 
lege Catalogue the names of the alumni belonging to 
each class, not in alphabetical order, but according to 
their rank in society. Every modern edition of this 
document, even in our own time, preserves the same 
arrangement in the lists of the older classes ; so that 
whoever may have had an ancestor that graduated at 
that college, can easily learn his relative social position 
by consulting the Triennial Catalogue. My venerable 
clerical friend was certainly not at the summit of his 
class in this respect, neither was he quite at the bottom 
of the scale of respectability. I have heard him describe 
the pecuniary difficulties and struggles he was obliged to 
undergo, in order to procure his education. His sisters 
had kindly made him up twelve very important articles 
of linen, and at the beginning of each term he would take 
them to Cambridge in his saddlebags, all clean-blanched 
by their own fair hands, and would wear each of the 
garments one week, bringing the whole number home 
again at the end of the term, in a condition fit for the 
purifying cares of his affectionate laundresses. Through- 
out his college life, he secured his own diet by w^aiting 
on his classmates at table ; an office which has been 
borne by some of the most eminent men in our country, 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 197 

and was not abolished from our colleges until a recent 
date. He felt the disadvantage of commencing his lit- 
erary career late in life, being nearly thirty years old at 
the time of his graduation, and having borne among his 
classmates the title of Pate7' omnium. 

Those were not the favored days of Theological Semi- 
naries, or of charitable Education Societies. He there- 
fore entered, as was customary for divinity students, into 
the family of some distinguished minister of the Gospel, 
on whose farm he labored for his board, and defrayed 
his other expenses by teaching a winter school. While 
he was yet a candidate for the ministry, the Revolution- 
ary war commenced, and Mr. Peabody served for a time 
as chaplain in the regiment of Colonel Poor of New 
Hampshire. There might be some affinity between the 
name of this officer and Mr. Peabody's subsequent settle- 
ment at Atkinson, since that town abounds in the name 
of Poor, which, together with those of Page and Noyes, 
used to comprise about one half of the inhabitants. To- 
wards the close of the war, he was ordained as the first 
minister of the town. His salary was eighty pounds, or 
about two hundred and fifty dollars, per annum, with 
the addition, I believe, of a few cords of wood ; and it 
was never increased one farthing during his ministry of 
more than forty years. It was his custom, on a particu- 
lar day in the year, to wait at his own house on his 
parishioners, for the purpose of receiving their minister's 
tax. As he had open accounts with almost all of them, 
for labors rendered him, or provisions supplied, or articles 
manufactured, during the year, the cash balance which 
he was enabled to sum up and count over after their 
departure would rather amuse him by its exceeding lit- 

17* 



198 KEV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

tleness, or nothingness, than weigh upon his conscience 

for services overpaid. His farm contained about fifty 

acres. To liquidate his debt for it, which I believe he 

was never quite able to effect, the severest privations and 

hardest toils were cheerfully borne by hinnself and his 

first wife, who was renowned for the number of rolls of 

wool and flax which she would card in a given time. 

The early years of his ministry must have been well 

illustrated (I do not mean paralleled) by a picture I have 

somewhere seen of a poor English curate, and described 

underneath by the following lines : — 

" Though lazy, the proud prelate 's fed^ 
This curate eats no idle bread : 
His wife at washing, 't is his lot 
To pare the turnips, watch the pot. 
He reads, and hears his son read out, 
And rocks the cradle with his foot." 

I have heard him mention, that, after having wrought in 
the field the whole day, he has often sat up all night to 
compose and finish his sermon ; which, by the way, he 
wrote in a small, distinct, and beautiful hand. 

In person Mr. Peabody was large and commanding, 
having attained full six feet in height, and being otherwise 
of very portly dimensions. His eye was black, and his face 
was swarthy but well-proportioned. His hair was bushy 
and curling, swelling out to an ample rotundity behind, 
like that of Mirabeau. I believe he never followed the 
coxcombry of our reverend forefathers in wearing a bush- 
wig, or a wig of any other kind. Though in general 
courteous and bland in bis address, yet when he heard 
profane language, or received a personal insult, an awful 
shadow would gather on his visage, his eye would roll 
fiery glances in every direction, and the dauntless volley 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 199 

of rebuke would be poured from his lips. His passions 
were naturally strong, and he feared no human being 
alive. Had any of his parishioners dared to attack his 
person (since he had his quarrels sometimes), I have not 
the least question that they would have bitterly rued the 
moment, for his physical powers were mighty, and in his 
youth he had been the invincible w^restler of many par- 
ishes round, and being now fresh from the Revolution- 
ary war, he had not yet learned to identify the higher 
Christianity with non-resistance. 

His conversation was enlivened with innumerable an- 
ecdotes, which he related with surpassing glee and 
humor, reserving the contagious laugh until the closing 
point, and using all sorts of dramatic accompaniments, 
frequently rising from table in the midst of a meal, and 
taking the floor, if he could thereby set off the action to 
better advantage. 

His musical powers and habits were extraordinary, 
and he almost revelled through life in an atmosphere of 
sweet sounds of his own creating. On rainy days, when 
unlikely to be disturbed by captious or narrow-minded 
visitors, he would take out his golden-toned violin from 
a little closet, and draw from its strings the richest and 
most bewitching notes, a sweet and serene half-smile all 
the time playing over his lip and cheek and eye. His 
voice was of vast compass, and exquisitely flexible. He 
was at home in every part in music. When there was 
no choir in the meeting-house, he led the singing him- 
self; and when there was one, he supplied the deficient 
parts, rolling out a mellow and deep-toned bass, or w^ar- 
bling with his treble or counter over the whole concert, 
like an animated mocking-bird. He sang on w^eek-days 



"200 REV. STEPHEN PEABODT AND LADY. 

at his work, and sometimes talked aloud to himself" most 
agreeably. He would sing on his rides about the town, 
or when travelling in his chaise, alone or accompanied, 
by night or by day; and all the solitudes and echoes of 
that region have many a time rung with his loud and 
melodious voice. He was most fond of sacred music, 
but did not disdain a scrap now and then of secular. 
He would sing you, in perfect taste, with graceful ges- 
ture and a happy look, either sitting or standing, various 
extracts from the delightful old anthems of Arne or Pur- 
cell, or from the oratorios of Handel. Coming home 
from public worship, if a favorite tune had just been 
sung there, he would repeat it over and over as he en- 
tered the house, stopping you in a companionable way, 
looking you smilingly in the face, and asking if it w^as 
not beautiful. He would, except on Sunday morn- 
ings, awaken the whole household of sleepers at sunrise, 
or as soon as he had made the fires, by singing up and 
down stairs, " The bright, rosy morning peeps over the 
hills," " The hounds are all out," or some other hunting- 
song equally stirring. He would take into his lap a 
little round, favorite dog, and, commanding it to sing 
with him, he would begin by roaring some tune aloud, 
the dog immediately joining in with a louder and re- 
sponsive roar. The only inconvenience from this prac- 
tice was that the dog one Sabbath followed his master 
unperceived to the meeting-house, and up to the plat- 
form of the pulpit-stairs, and too zealously practised 
there the musical lessons which he had been taught at 
home. On some warm summer afternoon, when all the 
windows of the house were open, and one of his young 
boarders, far up in the garret at his studies, might hap- 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 201 

pen, for variety's sake, to burst out in some cherished 
tune or strain, such, for instance, as old St. Anne's, his 
venerable friend, in the lower story, awaking from his 
transitory nap, would fall in with his melhfluous bass, 
and so would they sing for a long time together, until, 
looking out of their respective windows, they would 
smile upon each other, as who should say, " Were there 
ever two better friends than we ? " 

He was, indeed, the soul of good nature, particularly 
with the young, and seemed never so happy as when 
four or five of them were clambering about his person, 
taking and yielding unrestrained liberties in turn. Like 
the Apostle Paul's charity, he was '' easily persuaded," 
and you had rarely to ask him more than once to tell one 
of his inimitable anecdotes, or take down the violin from 
the closet on a rainy day, or perform his duet with 
Watch, the overgrown little dog. If a poor and promis- 
ing young man in the parish was desirous of a liberal 
education, Mr. Peabody's purse was open for his assist- 
ance, with a very distant and precarious chance of being- 
repaid. His hospitality was ungrudging, to the utmost 
extent of the Apostolic and New Testament standard. 
Not a day passed that some welcome addition failed of 
being made to our already crowded table. The parish- 
ioner coming to return his book to the Social Library, — 
the old, familiar acquaintance, — the professed old ac- 
quaintance, too, whom the host was sometimes puzzled 
to recognize, — the travelling brother-minister, stopping 
with his horse for a week or two, — the passing belated 
stranger, too far from the tavern for his dinner, — all 
were cordially invited to partake of the fare for the day. 
The very doors of the mansion were left unfastened at 



202 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

night, — as, indeed, they scarcely needed locks in that 
primitive society, — and many a winter traveller from 
Vermont and Upper New Hampshire, going down in his 
loaded sleigh to the markets on the sea-board, has come 
in to warm himself by the midnight bed of embers, held 
long and pleasant conversations with Mr. Peabody as he 
lay in an adjoining bed-room, and then retired, the par- 
ties being destined never to see or imagine each other's 
appearance, or to hear each other's voice again. 

The titles by which he was designated among his 
acquaintances were various, according to the degrees of 
affection, or respect, or indifference, with which he was 
regarded. By some he was called " Priest Peabody," by 
others " Parson Peabody," by others " the Reverend Mis- 
ter," by others again plain " Mister Peabody " ; but from 
all the family, and from all those who were more or less 
intimately connected with or attached to him, he received 
the endearing appellation of " Sir Peabody," by which 
he wdll generally be distinguished in the remainder of 
these sketches. 

As a divine, he was far from being eminent, though 
he certainly held in his constitution the elements of a 
popular preacher, and he exercised, by the force and de- 
cision of his character, considerable influence in his own 
little section of the ecclesiastical world. He was occa- 
sionally called on to preach a sermon at an ordination, 
and once before the legislature of the State ; and his few^ 
published discourses on such occasions are quite respect- 
able in point of style and matter. In his pulpit manner 
there was frequently a good deal of animation. Pie had 
often heard Whitfield in his youth, and he would some- 
times in private imitate that celebrated orator with im- 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 203 

pressive effect, calling upon the angel Gabriel not to fly 
back to heaven without carrying with him the tidings of 
at least one converted sinner, — looking at the same 
time, in the manner of Whitfield, afar off to the sky, as 
if he saw the lessening wing of the departing seraph. 
Approximations to such passages, however, were very 
rare indeed in his own public performances. In doc- 
trine, he had always been an inveterate Arminian, show- 
ing no mercy to Calvinism, or to Hopkinsianism, or Uni- 
versalism, wherever they might be found. In later life, 
he advanced still farther into what is denominated Lib- 
eral Christianity, having purchased and perused Noah 
Worcester's " Bible News " with satisfaction, recom- 
mending and lending it to his friends, and reading Buck- 
minster's Sermons with delight at his Sabbath family 
services. 

His library, if it deserve such a name, was marvellous- 
ly small. Besides Matthew Henry's Commentary on the 
Scriptures, and Cruden's Concordance, I do not think 
he owned thirty theological books, nor more than that 
number of any other kind, except a small closetful of the 
pamphlets of forty years, from which one could catch 
tolerable glimpses of the political and ecclesiastical mat- 
ters of New England during that period of time. While 
studying my Greek Testament at home, to be recited to 
my teacher at the academy, I always applied in vain to 
Sir Peabody for a solution of my grammatical and other 
difficulties, since he candidly confessed that he had 
grown somewhat rusty on that score. He read some 
compact and valuable annotations on the Bible (Cappe's, 
I think, — not Newcome Cappe) at daily morning prayers, 
and a choice sermon from President Davies, Wither- 



204 KEY. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

spoon, or some other approved divine, at tlie Sunday- 
evening family service. Great was the pleasure among 
the youthful portion of his auditory, when for these 
divines he would substitute Hannah More's Cheap Re- 
pository Tracts. Sweetly even now on the memory 
descends " The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain," blended 
with the recollection of those calm Sabbath sunsets. 
Our friend's acquaintance with English literature was 
respectable, though rather stationary, being sustained 
by the attentive reading of a few solid volumes, which 
might be taken from the Haverhill Library, or from the 
small, well-selected Atkinson Social Library, of which 
he was the founder and librarian. To this establishment 
about twenty or thirty farmers and others were subscrib- 
ers, who would carefully return its books wrapped in 
their pocket-handkerchiefs, and an intelligent shoemaker 
in the parish could boast that he had perused every vol- 
ume it contained. Sir Peabody had a good habit of 
reading aloud a paper in the Spectator, every morning, 
to the female members of his family, while they were 
engaged in those earnest cares and gentle mysteries 
which necessarily succeed the refreshments and exercises 
of the breakfast-table. The newspapers which he took 
(for I deem that the newspaper one habitually reads is a 
constituent part and parcel of the very man) were, first 
and foremost, the Columbian Centinel, printed semi- 
weekly at Boston, which w^as the favorite organ of the 
old Federal party, and therefore of almost the whole clergy 
of New England, and whose venerable editor, Benjamin 
Russell, survived at Boston to a green and bright old 
age of more than eighty years ; next, the weekly Haver- 
hill Observer, on the same scale of politics, but about 






REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 205 

which the partisans of the opposite side would merci- 
lessly pun, in pronouncing it a truly lueakly paper; and 
lastly, as the violence of party and a general intellectual 
activity more and more prevailed, The Boston Reper- 
tory, established with the main design of personally and 
politically opposing Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Peabody 
occasionally contributed an anonymous political essay to 
the Haverhill Observer; but in vain was his name con- 
cealed from his prying parishioners of the opposite party, 
who recognized the style and sentiments which he had 
reiterated among them in private, and who made his 
lucubrations the subjects of much ill-natured comment 
and sarcasm in little groups at the shoemaker's or the 
tavern. 

Our friend was not one of those selfish lords of the 
household, who engross in silence the first reading of 
the wet sheet, and bury the news of the day or week in 
their own uncommunicative spirits. He faithfully read 
aloud and in order the whole contents to the family, 
whatever might be our want of interest in some of the 
columns ; and if an article, however long, particularly 
pleased him, we were doomed to hear the reading of it 
repeated, more perhaps than once or twice, to some 
winter-evening visitor. He kept a minute journal of the 
particulars of every day, which amounted, at the close of 
each year, to a thick duodecimo volume. Those forty 
or fifty volumes, which I have often seen as they lay 
piled up in the top of the closet, if still preserved, and 
explored by some competent inquirer, would unquestion- 
ably furnish materials for a curious and valuable memoir 
of their writer's life and times. At the end of each an- 
nual journal, a list was kept of all the deaths which had 

18 



206 EEV. STEPHEN PEABODT AXD LADT. 

occurred doring the year in the circle of his acquaint- 
ance : and the melancholy catalogue, which, as it gradu- 
ally increased under his hand, called forth from him a 
sigh of recollection, or a tribute to departed worth or 
friendship, or a religious reflection, generally contained 
more than one hundred names every year. 

He would once in a while compose an elaborate letter 
to some distant acquaintance, containing his opinions 
and strictures on the prevailing tendencies of the day. 
They were written with much wisdom and point, and, 
before being copied off for the post, were read with con- 
siderable formality to some members of the family for 
their criticism or concurrence. 

He was given sometimes to deep metaphysical discus- 
sion; and I have seen him, at a protracted breakfast 
hour, apparently succeed in convincing ladies who had 
brought their children to board with him, that the Divine 
" decrees " were in some way consistent with the perfect 
freedom of the will. His fair guests had nothing to say 
in defence of Jonathan Edwards, and listened to his 
assailant's remains with as little impatience and distress 
as can well be imagined. 

He found opponents, however, less courteous and sub- 
missive in certain members of the Association of Minis- 
ters, who met in turn about once in two years at his 
house. There, though sometimes everything went off 
pleasantly, yet often arguments, words, and feelings ran 
high ; Calvinist and Arminian conflicted in the fierce tug 
of war : countenances daikened and eyes flashed on both 
sides: constrained and hurried adjournment was made 
to the meeting-house, where a few lay-women and fewer 
lavmen were waiting for the public service: a dinner. 



KEY. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 207 

crowned with many a luxury, was partaken with feelings 
of mingled acrimony and festivity ; the very grace, before 
and after meat, by different ministers, was criticised in 
little knots of whispering malecontents ; parties sepa- 
rated for their homes, foreboding disastrous days to the 
Church ; — and all are now reposing in the arms of that 
sovereign, universal peacemaker, whose dominion extends 
just five or six feet below the wars and passions and jeal- 
ous alarms which rage on the verdant overlying surface. 

To return to our friend in his pastoral relation, — his 
sermons were regularly divided, although the divisions 
never reached the nineteenthly or tiL'entiethhj with which 
the discourses of olden time are often reproached. After 
a short introduction, he almost always laid out his mat- 
ter into four partitions, the last of which was to contain 
a variety of practical conclusions ; and these, I must 
confess, were occasionally multiplied and protracted, to 
the consternation of some among his younger hearers at 
least. He would often introduce very long extracts 
from Matthew Henry's Commentaries, and I think from 
one or two other writers, honestly intimating how far 
the extract extended, by closing it with " Thus Mr. 
Henry," or, more briefly, '• Thus he." 

His public prayers were invariably the same, and it 
might be owing to this circumstance, and a well-disci- 
plined mental piety, that he was enabled to conduct that 
part of public worship with fluency, and I have no doubt 
with sincerity also, while his nearly closed eyes would 
follow some entering stranger, or late straggler at service, 
till he reached his pew. 

His funeral services were deeply impressive and affect- 
ing, and, as he loved his parishioners warmly, his own 



208 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

tears would generally lead the way for the tears of oth- 
ers. When, on these occasions, the throng of attend- 
ants from the neighboring towns was large, he would 
take his stand near the bier out of doors beneath some 
tree ; and there his sonorous voice, ejaculating ardent 
intercessions for the mourners, and solemn admonitions 
for all, was heard at a very great distance. 

On wedding occasions, with his extraordinary social 
qualities, he was of course the life of the evening. Even 
when the parties came to his house, he entertained them 
with sportive anecdote and sound advice, and on one 
particular occasion was not the less amusing and in- 
structive, although the avaricious bridegroom, in lieu of 
one dollar, the legal fee for the ceremony, tendered him 
exactly one quarter of that amount. 

For the last thirty years of his life, I doubt if he com- 
posed on an average four new sermons annually, though 
he faithfully revised, corrected, and modified his old ones, 
even if the weather gave him reason to expect no more 
than half a dozen attendants at service. 

There must have been considerable power and unction 
in his ministrations, since, notwithstanding a great va- 
riety of opinions and denominations prevailed in the 
town, he brought their adherents together in pretty full 
congregations almost to the last, arresting the fixed at- 
tention of infidels, Methodists, Baptists, and Universal- 
ists, as well as those of his own immediate persuasion. 
I have seen men, who I knew were not believers in 
Christianity, fastened as by a spell to his discourses from 
the beginning to the end. I have known the hardened 
sinner who came to him in private, subdued and softened 
into tears, and gently guided by his counsels and prayers 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 209 

into those green pastures and by those still waters where 
his soul would find enduring rest. Men who had long 
violently opposed his views, and had been harrowing 
thorns in his side, yet who constantly attended his ser- 
vices, I have found from time to lime, in my subsequent 
visits to Atkinson, become, much to my surprise, as 
Sauls among the prophets, most affecting instances of 
calm, fervent, and habitual piety, and dying at last in 
the full faith and hope of a blessed immortality. There 
were two or three hardened individuals, indeed, who 
would never appear inside the sacred walls, except when 
they had lost one of their own family by death ; and 
then they would attend and hear the funeral sermon, 
submitting even so far to public opinion and custom as 
to offer up a note for the prayers of the congregation. 
How many ways have God's grace and providence to 
subdue to himself the stubborn will of man ! I take no 
notice here of the habitual drunkards of the parish, nor 
of a few sorry individuals who really had not souls 
large enough to know how to find themselves within a 
meeting-house. They remind me of a sublime saying 
which Sir Peabody himself used to quote from one of his 
shrewd parishioners with uproarious approbation, that if 
a million of such souls were to dance together on the 
point of a fine cambric-needle, they would fancy them- 
selves to be revelling in infinite space ! 

Mr. Peabody's communion-table was attended by the 
usual proportion of professors. How observable and 
lamentable, that just about the same undue proportion 
still continues in nearly all the congregations through- 
out the land at the present time ! With a fearless hand 
he held the keys and wielded the rod of discipline, ex- 

18=**= 



210 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

communicating from the church the flagrant offender, 
and then perhaps influencing him in private, until he 
was brought again into the pale, with the agony of re- 
pentance at his heart, and the petition for re-admission 
on his lips. There were occasions, in the course of his 
preaching, when the blackening cloud and fiery flash 
which I have before described would overcast his coun- 
tenance. In his annual sermons, for instance, on New- 
Year's or Thanksgiving day, while enumerating the 
blessings of the preceding year, the peace and quiet 
which the town had enjoyed, and the general satisfaction 
which the people had expressed in his ministry, his voice 
would lower and his countenance change, as he re- 
marked, after a momentary pause, " — a few incendi- 
aries alone excepted ! " Here he alluded to some secta- 
rian or infidel opponents who had disturbed his minis- 
try and interrupted the harmony of the town. Every 
one knew the individuals to whom he alluded, even if he 
himself did not look down, as it is altogether likely he 
would, with glaring eye, over his spectacles, into the very 
pews of the offenders. 

Once I saw his Christianity most severely put to the 
test in his public services. It was on a very inclement 
day, and there were but few worshippers in the meeting- 
house. When he had reached about the middle of his 
sermon, a strong perfume of tobacco-smoke became dis- 
tinctly perceptible to every one in the building. He 
paused for a little while, gazed round, and, not being 
able to discover whence it proceeded, resumed his dis- 
course. In the mean time the mysterious odor grew 
stronger and stronger, and the house was soon filled with 
a dense vapor. Again and longer did he pause. And 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 211 

as, with spectacles now raised to his forehead, his eye 
explored every part of the edifice, both on the floor and 
in the galleries, he at length saw ascending from the 
bottom of one of the gallery pews three separate streams 
of smoke, in fast-repeated puffs, as if they were issuing 
for a wager, or were determined to exhaust themselves, 
in spite of the notice which they had now evidently at- 
tracted from the minister and the congregation. " Is it 
possible," exclaimed the grieved and exasperated divine, 
— " Is it possible that such sacrilegious impiety as that 
which I see should take place in this house of God ? 
Let it stop instantly, or if conscience and religion can 
be of no avail, an appeal must be made to the strong 
arm of the law." A pause of still and solemn wonder 
mantled over the thin congregation. Not a word was 
spoken, not an object stirred, save the three continued 
streams of puffs, which persevered in their daring out- 
rage, in defiance of every awful or constraining sanction. 
" Squire Vose I " at length exclaimed Sir Peabody, ad- 
dressing himself in a determined, authoritative voice to 
the preceptor of the academy, who was also a justice of 
the peace, and whom on other occasions he simply 
called Mr. Vose, " I desire that you would proceed to 
the pew in the gallery from w^hich that smoke is issuing, 
and put down the offence immediately, and that to-mor- 
row you would take measures to have the offenders 
prosecuted and punished to the utmost extremity of the 
law." Accordingly Mr. Vose proceeded to the gallery, 
extinguished the source of the disturbance, and the ser- 
vice then proceeded quietly to the close. The next day, 
the culprits, who proved to be three apprentices and 
farmers' boys, — though, to his shame, one of them, at 



212 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

least, was of a manly growth, — becoming alarmed at 
the threatened consequences of their thoughtless sacri- 
lege, were induced, if I rightly recollect, to make peni- 
tent acknowledgments and promises of better conduct 
for the future, and so were forgiven. 

This leaning to the authority of the civil power con- 
tributed perceptibly, I apprehend, to characterize much of 
Sir Peabody's ministerial deportment. There still ex- 
isted at that time in New England a sort of palpable 
connection between Church and State, w^hich subsequent 
legal enactments and alterations of constitutions have 
everywhere done away. There also prevailed towards 
clergymen, as somehow connected with the resistless 
majesty of the civil law, a traditionary reverence, handed 
down not only from our English ancestors in the times 
both of the Kings and the Commonwealth, but also from 
our puritanical Pilgrim fathers, whose policy, it is well 
known, w^ent far to combine the rod of the magistrate 
with the pastoral crook. This feeling of reverence, no 
doubt, was considerably prevented from decaying by 
the sympathy and co-operation which the New-England 
clergy exhibited with the popular party throughout our 
whole Revolutionary struggle, — as, indeed, it was after- 
wards very much undermined and diminished by the 
zeal with which they espoused the principles of the Fed- 
eral party, in the times that followed the French Revo- 
lution. For the payment of Mr. Peabody-s salary, the 
law permitted him to look to the whole corporate town, 
and not to any voluntary assemblage of friends and par- 
tisans. It was thus guaranteed to him by the power and 
authority of the State, and, no matter how many sects 
abounded in Atkinson, they were all obliged to contrib- 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 213 

ute to the minister's tax equally with the Congregation- 
alists or Independents, to whose communion he himself 
belonged, and who were the direct descendants from 
Oliver Cromwell's own denomination. No combination 
of enemies could avail to eject him from his pitiful liv- 
ing. We believe that New Hampshire threw off these 
slight fettering relics of the ancient order of things sev- 
eral years previously to Massachusetts, and that Sir 
Peabody experienced not a little the moral effects of the 
change before his death. Perhaps the three burners of 
false incense in the gallery were among the earliest 
symptoms of the rising spirit of Young New England to 
question and to break the spell. Such Avas not, how- 
ever, the general tone of the transition period which I 
am endeavoring to portray. The traditionary, mystic 
influence which the minister exercised over his parish- 
ioners went even, I think, in many cases, beyond the 
legitimate powers he possessed, and would have been 
stoutly resisted, could it have been encountered and 
analyzed by some daring hand. It was something like 
the sway which one of the Speakers of the House of 
Commons wielded over that assembly in the third quar- 
ter of the last century. Long after the royal authority 
had been shorn of its formidable prerogatives, this gen- 
tleman had the skill to intimidate many an adventurous 
orator who had dared to treat lightly the proceedings of 
the House, by exclaiming, " Let the honorable gentle- 
man beware of what he says, or he shall assuredly be 
reported ! " That word reported fell on the ears of Parlia- 
ment like some mysterious denunciation from the invis- 
ible world. On one of these occasions, however, some 
intrepid and independent champion of the popular cause 



214 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

is said to have replied, " And to whom, in the name 
of wonder, Mr. Speaker, am I going to be reported ? " 
Whereupon this was the last time the threat was ever 
uttered. 

Sir Peabody was, in many analogous respects, this 
Right Honorable Speaker of his parish and his day. In 
his very person he would on some rare occasions stand 
out as the embodying representative of the grand concep- 
tions and reverences of the past. Methinks I see his 
form even now, as it impressed itself on my youthful 
imagination, looming afar off in the road, on the hill-top, 
against the sky. He may be going to pay some very 
formal visit. As he descends the hill wdth an animated 
and vigorous, but not hurried pace, I discern more dis- 
tinctly his elaborate and imposing old-time dress, — his 
high three-cornered beaver hat, — his large single-breast- 
ed coat, sweeping down on each side with an ample 
curve, — his vest, " full twice the length of these degen- 
erate days," ending on both sides with large pockets and 
lappets, — his snow-white plaited stock, under a smooth- 
ly shaven, expanded chin, and fastened behind with a 
silver buckle, — his nether garment terminating at his 
knees, and fastened there also with small silver buckles, 
— his long black-silk stockings extending from the knee 
to the foot, — the whole being finished and consum- 
mated by shining, square-buckled shoes. He draws still 
nearer, and with something of the old erect, military air 
which he had caught in the camp, something of that 
conscious lingering majesty of church-and-state author- 
ity about him which I have hinted at in the preceding 
paragraph, something of the man of the world, and much 
more of the sociable, good-humored, busy, Christian pas- 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 215 

tor, he makes to those whom he meets a graceful, cere- 
monious bow, yet accompanied with a smile, and a 
hearty " Good day," and passes on. 

This, however, belongs to my earlier and more palmy 
recollections of him. As age advanced, and means per- 
haps were straitened, and post-Revolutionary fashions 
prevailed, his dress and appearance, even in his best 
array, became less picturesque, aristocratic, and awe-in- 
spiring. Silk would now give way to worsted, and the 
shoe-buckle be replaced by the plain galloon or plainer 
leathern string. 

But far more astounding the change exhibited, even at 
the former brilliant period, by the very same individual, 
when engrossed by the labors of some busy season of the 
year; — holding perhaps the plough; or hoeing the corn- 
field until the latest shade of twilight; or urging forward 
the various processes of haymaking; or grafting his 
trees ; or gathering in the autumnal harvest ; or pressing 
out his year's stock of cider from immense apple-heaps ; 
or shaking and gleaning the apple-trees, all of which he 
mounted for that purpose himself; or laying up the 
choicest kinds of fruit in his extensive apple-cellar, to 
bring them out every day through the winter with pro- 
fuse and hospitable pride ; or butchering a beeve, or 
butchering a swine, — operations, every detail of w^hich 
he executed with artistic dexterity, though I imagine he 
was the only butcher who never sacrificed a lamb with- 
out repeating aloud to himself or to the by-standers those 
four lines of Pope, — 

" The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, 
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play 1 
Pleased to the last he crops the flowery food, 
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood." 



216 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

Amidst toils like these came forth the large flapped, 
weather-stained, round, and low-crowned hat, which had 
commenced its brighter days of service in a very different 
shape some dozen years before, — the unshaven face, 
neglected, at some very busy periods, from one Sabbath 
morning to another, — and the old service-beaten gown, 
tied up about the waist, or probably no upper garment 
at all save the reeking shirt that covered his bending 
frame. 

For his years, he was one of the most laborious men 
in his parish. With the occasional exception of a hired 
workman or two, and a small apprentice-boy, he carried 
on the operations of his farm alone. The whole fuel for 
several fires in the house, through the long Northern 
winter, was often chopped and supplied by his stalwart 
arm alone. 

When polished visitors arrived from the seaport towns 
or elsewhere, give him but an hour at his toilette, and 
again he is metamorphosed into the well-dressed, hospi- 
table entertainer, betraying no complaint at the interrup- 
tion of his most urgent toils, and carrying on animated 
conversations for hours together. In short, it would now 
almost appear that he preferred talk to work, that he 
would rather play the gentleman than the hard laborer, 
and that he gladly seized the agreeable duties of hos- 
pitality as an excuse to escape from the overwhelm- 
ing drudgeries of the farm. I well know that such in- 
sinuations were maliciously whispered about against 
"Priest Peabody" by the mean, insurrectionary spirits 
of the parish. 

Perhaps there was greater plausibility in the regrets 
which his more serious friends would sometimes express, 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 217 

that the demeanor of Sir Peabody now and then sa- 
vored of an apparent worldliness and carelessness, 
hardly consistent with the strict proprieties of the min- 
isterial character. Such regrets may have been some- 
what justified by his exuberant animal spirits, his love 
of a busy, bustling life, his exceeding proneness to social 
intercourse, and the debts, expedients, and multiplied 
managements, far and near, to which, with a currency 
changing in value, he was obliged to resort, in the vol- 
untary task of sustaining a family of twenty boarders. 

He used to relate an anecdote of himself with his pe- 
culiar humor, — that having once fattened a first-rate 
calf for market, he sent it by one of his parishioners to 
the town of Haverhill, anxious to obtain for it the high- 
est price. " And what shall I tell the people of Haver- 
hill," said his friend to him, " in order to persuade them 
to come up to your mark ? " " O, tell them," replied 
Sir Peabody, " that the calf belongs to a poor man who 
is maintained by the town of Atkinson." The stratagem, 
although originally intended as nothing more than an 
innocent joke, succeeded very well, and Mr. Peabody 
frequently afterwards had his laugh in person against the 
purchaser. 

It will be regarded as a striking symptom of the 
change in public opinion, and even in the spirit of our 
laws, that Sir Peabody was the acting manager of a 
public lottery for the benefit of his cherished Atkinson 
Academy, disposing of the tickets all over the country 
wherever he was able, and himself personally superin- 
tending the drawing, while the whole proved an embar- 
rassing concern, on account of the incomplete sale of 
tickets, or some other unfortunate mismanagement. It 

19 



218 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

cost him two or three journeys to Boston in the depth of 
winter, in vainly endeavoring to procure the consent of 
the Massachusetts legislature, that the tickets might be 
sold in that Commonwealth ; and sadly did the family 
feel, as we all flocked around him at the opening of a 
fresh Columbian Centinel, and then heard him read with 
Christian and philosophic calmness from the journal of 
the legislature, that " the Rev. Mr. Peabody had leave 
to withdraw his petition." 

Whether all these possible deficiencies from a high 
pastoral standard were the operating cause of that re- 
bellious sectarism which broke up his little town into 
fragments, and for many years prevented the ordination 
there of any officiating minister, the Searcher of hearts 
and Former of spirits can alone determine. I have my- 
self often breathed a wish, in subsequent years, that it 
had been my lot in early youth to receive my religious 
impressions from a clerical example of greater spirituality 
and a more decidedly preponderating piety. But then, 
again, I have almost immediately recoiled from the 
thought, as if I had rendered a kind of sacrilegious in- 
justice and ingratitude to the memory of my old, warm- 
hearted, unvarying friend. The recollection of his many 
whole-souled virtues, which I have already enumerated 
in this sketch, and the positive religious good which I 
know his ministry in many cases produced, are amply 
sufficient to redeem it from any deep-stained reproach of 
inefficiency. Where is the man, and especially among 
those whose natural constitution prompts them to much 
outward activity, — where is the man whose character is 
entirely free from some practical inconsistency ? I know 
that such inconsistencies are to be lamented and con- 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LA.DY. 219 

demned, and everybody shall do it for Sir Peabody who 
does it ill a thorough-searching, thorough-cleansing man- 
ner for himself. 

The most prominent characteristic about this very 
peculiar man was, it seems to me, that he was a true son 
of nature. No child of the forest, no hero of antiquity, 
ever stepped forth before his fellows with more freshness 
and freedom of action. There was little or no self-disci- 
pline or self-training about him ; but whatever part of 
his character had not been formed and moulded by the 
stringency of outward circumstances was just as it came 
from the hand of God. If he had little about him of 
the loftier and self-denying qualities of the highest spir- 
itual Christianity, so, on the other hand, he had noth- 
ing about him artificial, or simulating, or pretentious. 

As I have ventured with a free hand to draw a light- 
and-shade portraiture of my friend, I ought, in conclud- 
ing it, to observe, that none had better opportunities 
than myself of testifying to the reality and solidity of 
his piety. Having listened to his morning prayers for 
several years together, after the Bible had been duly read 
by the whole family around in turn ; having joined his 
evening devotions at an hour when the distinct, solemn 
ticking of the clock united with the surrounding dark- 
ness and stillness to impress every word on the atten- 
tion ; having witnessed a certain sweet and gracious 
sanctity which always pervaded his countenance and 
manners on the Sabbath ; having heard him, hundreds of 
times and on every variety of occasion, both when alone 
and with children whom he desired to- impress, utter 
serious reflections on the vanity and precariousness of 
life, and the religious responsibility of man ; having vis- 



220 REV. STEPHEN TEABODY AND LADY. 

ited his bedside at night, under the youthful struggles 
of an agitated experience derived fronn perusing Dod- 
dridge's " Rise and Progress," or Edwards's " History of 
Redemption," or the Bible itself, — books which he had 
himself carefully recommended to me to read, — and 
having there received, in that solemn, though not fearful 
darkness, his tender, judicious, fatherly, guiding lessons; 
— I may not hesitate, while acknowledging in his case 
the existence of imperfections incident to our common 
humanity, to claim for him the merited appellation of — 
to me at least — a man of God. 

He sleeps in the small grave-yard behind his meeting- 
house. Journeying a few years since from Boston on 
purpose to visit the spot, and standing by his grave while 
the bleak wind of New Hampshire murmured against 
his tombstone, and the grand, blue, shadowy Monadnock, 
unchanged as ever, waited afar off behind me, I could 
not repress the gushing ejaculation, — "O venerated 
spirit! It was long mine to witness thy busy, faithful, 
efficient activity and influence in the scene that out- 
spreads yonder before us ; I fear not to pray that it may 
■ also be mine to meet thee and share thy destiny, w^hat- 
ever it may be, in the dim and distant eternity." 
^ At the same moment, my arm was resting on another 
monumental stone. It was that of the blessed lady who, 
in my penniless boyhood, had joined her husband in wel- 
coming me to her home, and who acted towards myself 
and a hundred others of both sexes the unstinting part of 
a friend and mother. Mrs. Peabody, — or " Madam Pea- 
body," as some called her, — or " Ma'am Peabody," — so 
all who loved her pronounced it, as a kind of correlative 
appellation to " Sir," — had died a few years previously 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 221 

to her husband ; an event which contributed more than 
anything else to change the appearance and ways of her 
aged, declining partner. He would sometinnes try after- 
wards to repeat his ancient anecdotes, but accompanied 
them with only a faint smile, instead of the old infec- 
tious and irresistible laugh. Mrs. Peabody was allowed 
by all who enjoyed the happiness of her acquaintance to 
stand in the very foremost rank among the daughters of 
America. She was one of three celebrated sisters ; the 
other two having been Mrs. Adams, wife of the elder 
President Adams, and Mrs. Cranch, mother of the pres- 
ent Judge Cranch of Washington. I apprehend that 
by the numerous surviving relatives and admirers of 
those two accomplished ladies it will be considered no 
disparagement to their just claims, if I assert that Mrs. 
Peabody was the most interesting woman of the three. 
She was the daughter, with them, of the Rev. Mr. 
Smith, of Weymouth, near Boston, and was educated 
under the best ante-Revolutionary influences of that 
vicinity. 

Her conversational powers were of a superior order. 
She was adequate to any theme that custom has brought 
within the range of the female mind. Possessing the 
charms of a fine person, a delicate, transparent complex- 
ion, and a beautiful, speaking eye, with manners highly 
polished and courtly, a retentive memory, choice and 
fluent language, and an anxious pressure, a constantly 
inquiring upward tendency towards the right, — towards 
some indefinite point of moral and religious progress, — 
how could she do otherwise than produce a deep impres- 
sion on all within her sphere, kindling within them a 
love and reverence for the capacities of human nature, 

19* 



222 REV. STEPHEN PEABODT AND LADY. 

and earnest desires to make it better both in themselves 
and in others ? 

Scarcely ever did the youthful flock that gathered 
around her sit down at table, that she did not introduce 
some pleasing or improving topic of conversation, which 
she would embellish with apt and admirably recited pas- 
sages from Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Addison, Young, 
Thomson, and Cowper. Her annual visits to her Bos- 
ton and Quincy friends kept up her stores of refined 
cultivation, and she always returned prepared to com- 
municate her interesting observations on society, man- 
ners, and even the music and scanty painting of the day. 
Her vigilant eye kept an incessant watch over the con- 
duct and character of her boarders; sweetly would she 
rebuke, delicately would she warn, affectionately would 
she advise. Many a young man did she render thought- 
ful ; in many a young woman did she awaken lofty as- 
pirations after excellence. And when they left her house 
with her lessons warm on their memory, she would deep- 
en and protract the impression by sending after them 
her carefully composed and richly laden correspondence? 
which, if it could be collected and published, would jus- 
tify the tribute I now delight to pay. 

Not that she always appeared in this refined and ele- 
vated full-dress of character. Too well for that did she 
know the household duties of a New-England clergy- 
man's wife. She was almost as absorbingly devoted to 
the labors of her own department as we have seen that 
Sir Peabody was to his. Combing a dozen heads every 
morning, and shearing them when necessary, — mend- 
ing innumerable stockings and et ceieras^ — superintend- 
ing large broods of various poultry, — achieving the 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 223 

house-work which her one small maid must necessarily 
leave unfinished, — making those miscellaneous prepa- 
rations for a large family dinner which might not come 
within the grasp of her one solitary cook, — and every- 
where, from true Christian principle, not from sordid 
thrift, gathering up the fragments that nothing might be 
lost, — could she be justly charged with fastidiously 
playing the lady ? And though her morning dress could 
never, of course, be compared wiih the slouching, non- 
descript array which I. have tried to suggest as appertain- 
ing to Sir Peabody, — inasmuch as woman always con- 
trives, amidst the lowest occupations, to keep herself in 
more decent trim than man, — yet would I often witness 
with admiration and reverence the metamorphosis which 
she also underwent in the latter part of the day. The 
agitated and agitating housewife of the forenoon would 
be now in full court-dress, sitting erect in her rocking- 
chair, and reading Paley's Moral Philosophy, or some 
work of an equally elevated description, which " Sir " in 
fact could rarely find time to peruse. 

Now can it be wondered at that I should regard her 
as the beau-ideal of womankind ? Her image is at this 
moment in my mind's eye, with that selfsame peculiar, 
elaborate cap which had appealed so strongly to my 
boyish imagination the first moment I saw her. Why, 
indeed, may not the character of a lady be very much 
interpreted from the contour and structure of her head- 
dress ? For instance, — to appeal to a diametrically 
opposite kind of example, though it is logical, I believe, 
to do so, — could any reader of Dickens possess one half 
the depth of insight which he now enjoys into the quali- 
ties of Sally Brass, had the author deprived her of that 



224 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

specific yellow cap, with which he could not avoid sur- 
mounting her head, if he wished to convey a complete 
conception of her character? And in like manner I am 
certain that those snow-white folds within folds, those 
muslin-depths of soft bluish tint, those interwoven ad- 
vancing and retiring festoons of fine thread-lace, and that 
general poetic effect of outline, position, and air which 
adorned the majestic crown of my revered and beloved 
friend, were only so many external symbols, types, and 
representatives of that matchless purity of heart, those 
mystic and winning graces, and those exquisite intel- 
lectual adornments, which lay, like a substratum of vital, 
productive reality, within the recesses of her noble spirit 
beneath.* 

Her first husband was the Rev. Mr. Shaw of Haver- 
hill. I know little of the character or ministry of Mr. 
Shaw, except that he was generally regarded as a very 
worthy man, and faithful in his sacred vocation. Bating 
some economical arrangements imposed by the stress of 
hard necessity, their house was the centre of an elegant 
little society for twenty years after the Revolution ; some 
of the most cultivated residents of Boston and its vicin- 
ity delighting in a pilgrimage to Haverhill, where they 
could enjoy the charms of Mrs. Shaw's presence and 
conversation. 



* A portrait of this lady, executed by Stuart in his best style, with her 
queenly head-dress and all, and realizing everything that has been said in 
the text respecting her personal appearance, is now in the possession of Mrs. 
Felt of Boston, the surviving daughter of Mrs. Pcabody ; to whom and her 
husband, the Rev. Joseph B. Felt, the whole of this sketch has been submit- 
ted in manuscript, while their friendly suggestions have been gratefully and 
faithfully adopted. 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 225 

In reference to her second marriage, I must relate a 
curiously interesting anecdote, communicated to me by 
an old female domestic of Mrs. Shaw's family, herself 
one of the excellent of the earth, and who followed the 
fortunes of my friend in both her marriages. Mrs. Shaw 
had a cousin, Rev. Isaac Smith by name, a man of an 
excellent and lovely character, an accomplished scholar, 
a finished writer, and a polished gentleman of the old 
school. He had visited England, where he had been 
intimate in the family of the celebrated Miss Hannah 
More. He was now preceptor of the very respectable 
Dummer Academy at Byfield, near Newburyport, from 
which he would make excursions through the country in 
a one-horse chaise, kindly ready with his services to his 
ministerial brethren. Much later in life he removed from 
Byfield to the town of Boston, where he became chap- 
lain of the almshouse, keeper of the Theological Library, 
and moderator, by seniority in age, of the Boston Asso- 
ciation of Ministers, in the discharge, I believe, of which 
three offices he died, at the advanced period of eighty 
years. I there happened to enjoy for a considerable time 
the pleasure of the good old gentleman's acquaintance, 
when commencing life myself, and prosecuted together 
with him some agreeable tasks in theological literature. 
But I must now go back many years to the date of my 
anecdote. While Mr. Smith was preceptor of the By- 
field Academ}^, and riding benevolently round the coun- 
try, in middle life, Mrs. Shaw of Haverhill became a 
widow. Mr. Smith was one of several gentlemen who, 
according to common report, now aspired to her hand. 
I think my good-hearted informant assured me that he 
had entertained, even in his earlier years, similar fond 



226 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

pretensions to his fair young cousin. But owing to 
some diffidence, or delay, or accidental absence on his 
part, he had been precluded even then from the attain- 
ment of his hopes by his more successful rival, Mr. Shaw. 
He sought in no other quarter for the consolation of his 
wounded affections, but remained just as he was, until a 
mingled Providence again apparently opened for him an 
avenue to the former object of his regard. But it so 
happened that Mr. Peabody of Atkinson was a widower, 
of about the same standing in that isolated condition 
with Mrs. Shaw herself, and was now meditating a sec- 
ond connection in life. He had visited her house too 
long and frequently, and was too w^ell acquainted with 
the rare virtues and attractions that centred in her char- 
acter, not to perceive that a prize so near and so pre- 
cious ought by no means to be snatched from his grasp 
without a seasonable effort on his part to secure it. By 
a singular coincidence, Mr. Smith and Mr. Peabody both 
selected one and the same day, of violently pouring rain, 
to secure, by the offer of their hands, the consumma- 
tion of their glowing and honorable hopes; just as two 
eagles, o'erwearied with gloomy earth, might choose, 
unknown to each other, the moment of a driving storm 
to ascend into the serene and bright upper heaven. The 
choice of such a day, however, might possibly have been 
made by either party to preclude the probability of any 
rivalry or other officious interruption. Be that as it may, 
they both started from their homes after an early dinner, 
Mr. Peabody having six miles to ride in a southern di- 
rection, and Mr. Smith fifteen in a northern. Somewhat 
after dark, Mr. Smith's chaise, with all the deliberation 
of conscious security, enters the yard behind the favored 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 227 

residence, and stops, as usual, at the door in that part of 
the house. Lydia, my kind and true-hearted humble 
friend, being the domestic there, appears immediately at 
the door, with a look of peevish anxiety and agitation 
uncommon to her. She had long been encouraging Mr. 
Smith to take the present step, and much preferred that 
her mistress should join her destinies to him, to her 
union with any other man. She had ever pitied the 
frustration of his early pretensions, which she held to be 
still valid, and she considered, besides, that the superior- 
ity of his refined and gentlemanly manners, together 
with the respectability of his connections, entitled him, 
more than any other aspirant, to the envied hand. But 
when did ever match-maker succeed in outwitting the 
wiser decrees of destiny? My well-meaning gossip was 
obliged, in conclusion, to say, while in after-days, in a 
low voice, so as not to be heard in the Atkinson parlor, 
she recounted these incidents to a group of wondering 
school-boys, — "I am afraid, boys, that w^hen I went to 
the door, I spoke more sharply to Mr. Smith than I 
ought to have done; for I said to him, * You are alto- 
gether too late, sir ; Mr. Peabody has long ago dried his 
coat by this kitchen-fire, and has been sitting now with 
Mrs. Shaw for a whole hour in the parlor.' " Where or 
how Mr. Smith spent that evening, I never had the 
irreverent curiosity to inquire. I only know that the 
remainder of his long life was passed in a meek and 
acquiescent celibacy, tinged with a soft shadow of sad- 
ness, of which few knew the cause ; * and I believe as 

* Eather recently, a surviving friend of Mr. Smith has obligingly com- 
municated to me a somewhat different history of that excellent gentleman's 
affections in later life. So that my closing impressions in regard to his de- 
clining experience may have been tinged with the shadows of my imagination. 



228 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

firmly as that I am writing here, that he is now in that 
blessed world where there is neither marrying nor giving 
in marriage, and that he is, along with his two excellent 
friends, what he certainly seemed always and every- 
where to be while here on earth, as one of the angels in 
heaven. 

What kind of a treasure Sir Peabody thus obtained, 
has been already in a good measure portrayed. She 
was in general duly appreciated in her new place of resi- 
dence, as she was always received with joy, also, in her 
frequent visits to the old ; and I am not mistaken in 
saying, that, with few exceptions, she was looked up to 
by all the parishioners of both sexes in Atkinson, as a 
kind of superior being. I have observed the stamp of her 
bland and gracious manners on the good ladies of the 
place, even after the lapse of twenty years from her 
death. Can any one forget that dignified and winning 
expression with which, at the close of public worship, 
she followed her husband out of the meeting-house? 
According to a custom in that town, which I do not rec- 
ollect to have observed in more than one other part of 
our country, and I know not whence it originated, the 
minister was the very first person to depart from the 
sanctuary, the whole congregation silently standing until 
he and his lady had passed the threshold of the door. 
It was at least a respectful and impressive custom. What 
a contrast to the indecent haste, and scramble, so to 
speak, with which many congregations start off for home ; 
as if the benediction were like the dropping of a signal 
pocket-handkerchief on a race-course I Why, at least, 
might not all remain for a brief space, while the organ is 
enunciating its solemn and spirit-stirring ^/2a/(e, which is 



REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 229 

scarcely heard or appreciated under the present arrange- 
ment, and so depart one by one, as varying moods might 
prompt, consistently with the sanctity of the spot and 
the occasion ? Nothing, indeed, can be more worthy of 
imitation than the custom of Episcopalian assemblies, in 
closing their public services with silent personal prayer. 
Next to the solemn eflect of such a practice was that 
reverential repose with which we all used to stand wait- 
ing, while " Sir" descended the pulpit-stairs and passed 
along the broad-aisle, bowing alternately on each side 
with elaborate ceremony, and solemn, expanded eyes, 
and " Ma'am" immediately followed him out of the pew 
at the foot of the pulpit-stair, with her look cast down 
to the floor, as though she had no prerogative to bow, 
and with a modest, incipient smile on her visage, as if 
conscious that the pious love of many eyes were directed 
upon her. Reverence! whither hast thou fled? Since 
these thine external manifestations have disappeared, 
hast thou left behind, in the unfettered soul within, a 
growing love for the substantially true, and right, and 
holy, and beautiful, and venerable, and eternal ? 

But the same malignant spirits, who had fastened 
upon and magnified the defects of Mr. Peabody, were 
not wanting to espy or devise faults in his lady. I pass 
over the more contemptible of her maligners, who com- 
plained, that at her tea-visits abroad she preferred white 
to brown bread, and whom I only mention as indicatiner 
one feature of the manners of the times, which I trust 
has long since for ever disappeared. But the more plau- 
sible and decent of " Ma'am's " detractors levelled their 
shafts at much higher game. Among these, the favorite 
whispered scandal was, that she was a woman of tower- 

20 



230 REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND LADY. 

ing pride, and over fond of dress. Of pride she had no 
more than an angel from heaven, who stoops to protect 
and sympathize with the poorest and humblest, while he 
approaches the loftiest and haughtiest with a calm, con- 
scious sense of his own celestial dignity, which mean 
spectator-angels might possibly construe into pride. 
With regard to her alleged attachment to dress, so pro- 
found is my reverence for her whole character, that I 
have no doubt she conscientiously mingled her practice 
on this point with the purest sentiments of duty. Per- 
haps that characteristic emblematical cap of hers might 
seem to a cynical observer occasionally decked out with 
superabundant ornament. I remember reading in mod- 
ern ecclesiastical history, that the Huguenot ministers of 
the sixteenth century had the greatest difficulty in pre- 
venting the pious, lovely, and noble Madame Du Plessis, 
and several other ladies of high rank, from offending in 
the very same particular, and were finally compelled, like 
the Methodist divines of a later day in their war against 
ribbons, to decline the contest. Perhaps some adorn- 
ment of the kind is essential to the highest type of a lady 
of the Caucasian race. Perhaps, too, the very angel 
from heaven, to whom I just now alluded, may some- 
times view with too much complacency the lustre of his 
own pruned, ethereal wing. But let that pass. Could I 
even be convinced that in my sainted friend the refine- 
ment of an elevated nature ever faded down into femi- 
nine infirmity, I would but seize the occasion to remem- 
ber and inculcate that absolute perfection belongs only 
to ONE. 

1847. 



CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE ORATORY OF 
EDWARD EVERETT.* 

PUBLISHED IN THE SOUTHERN QUARTERLY REVIEW FOR APRIL, 1851. 

As Mr. Everett needed no accession to his reputation, 
this re-production of his brilliant life on the rostrum may- 
be considered as a gratuitous present to the public. It 
will be thankfully welcomed, not only as in itself a 
choice contribution to American literature, but as some- 
thing like an historical monument of the progress of our 
national culture. The author's life has been coeval with 
a peculiarly vigorous and critical stage of American de- 
velopment, whose tendency to absorption in gross, mate- 
rial interests or coarse political excitements, he has suc- 
cessfully resisted, while he has aided, as much as any man 
living, to impart to it a refined and intellectual direction. 
Gifted with extraordinary powers of mind, which almost 
from childhood produced upon his native community a 
kind of mysterious impression, he has incessantly sought 
to " magnify his office," by communicating a healthy and 
generous impulse to the spheres within his reach. His 
large and active ambition, disdaining everything eccen- 
tric or illegitimate, has invariably been baptized in a 

* Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions. By Edward Everett. 
In two volumes. Second Edition. Boston : Little and Brown. 1850. 



232 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

pure and wholesome element, and confined itself within 
the limits of immediate usefulness. Pandering to no low 
or transient tastes, he seems always instinctively to have 
proceeded on the conviction, that the public mind could 
be moulded and guided by influences adapted to its better 
nature ; and the result has shown how well founded was 
his conviction. If the pursuit of literature is cherished 
with any fondness in these United States, if the name 
of scholar is honorable among us, no person, probably, 
can lay claim to so large an agency in producing the 
happy effect, as Edward Everett. It is a curious and 
gratifying circumstance in his very imposing career, that 
in three widely separated regions, — on our Atlantic coast, 
by our Western waters, and in the mother country, — 
processions and festivals have been formed to do him 
personal honor, — not for his political influence, or lead- 
ership in any movement of exciting reform, but purely 
from the milder fame of his admirable and well-directed 
scholarship. We know of no similar contemporaneous 
example, nor, in fact, anything like it since the early and 
enthusiastic days of modern literature. 

As apposite to these observations, we subjoin an ex- 
tract from the little work of a tourist, published at New 
York, in 3838. The authoress is describing a Com- 
mencement occasion at Harvard College in 1836, at 
which Mr. Everett was present, in his official capacity, 
as Governor of Massachusetts. 

" It was seventeen years," she observes, " since I had previously 
attended this celebration ; my thoughts chiefly rested on the au- 
dience, and were drawn away from the speakers by the throng of 
memories that clustered so richly over the scene. There were 
many changes. The old Puritan meeting-house was gone, and 
had given place to one of elegant and classical structure. 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 233 



" After musing awhile on these things, until the voices of the 
speakers sounded, dream-like, amid the deeper voices of the past, 
my attention was riveted by one conspicuous individual. I had 
seen that subdued glance years ago, at his first college exhibition ; 
it was the same, — the same slow raising of the clear blue eye, the 
same deferential bow at honors conferred. The cheek of the man 
was pale, on the boy's was a crimson spot, where genius seemed 
feeding ; time had laid his hand on the head of the man, the boy's 
fair hair was glossy and full ; the limbs of the man, though not 
large, were firm, the boy was slender, so slender that it was feared 
mind would master him, and that he would be one of those plants 
that die early. Why God so often takes the prematurely ripe, 
we know not ; but we know that the responsibilities of such mor- 
al agents, when he permits them to remain, are fearfully great. 
The eye of Heaven must look searchingly down on the individuals 
it has gifted so unsparingly. 

"At the Commencement of 1811, he again appeared, still a 
boy, bearing off the honors of a man. There was another lapse 
of time, and he stood before the Phi Beta Kappa Society as a 
poet ; and the lips of the fair opened in praise, and friends gath- 
ered and fluttered like butterflies around the opened flower, and 
old men shook their heads in pleasant surprise, or gazed upon his 
modest brow, and bade him God speed. A few years passed, 
and he stood to be ordained in the holy character of a Gospel 
minister. I shall never forget that day. As his fathers in the 
ministry laid their hands on his head, he looked too slight for so 
tremendous a charge ; but when, at the close of the service, he 
pronounced a blessing on the audience, there was a tremulous 
depth in his voice which spoke of ardent communing with duty. 

" Another period elapsed, and he visited Europe, to glean from 
its fields pleasure and improvement. In the Chapel of Harvard 
College, on his return, I heard his first discourse. It was a brilhant 
summary of interesting things. Since then he has walked the 

20* 



234 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

halls of statesmen ; his various orations have risen like a line of 
beautiful hills on the literary horizon, and he has been crowned 
with civil honors." * 

A very mistaken and superfluous regret is sometimes 
expressed by Mr. Everett's admirers, that he has not de- 
voted his powers to some grand, continuous work, but 
has employed them on such fragmentary productions as 
compose the two volumes before us. We think there is 
in this regret more sentimentality than good sense. If 
some creating spirit chooses to give us for our refresh- 
ment a whole grove of noble palms, we will not quarrel 
with him for refraining to bestow in their room a solitary 
gigantic oak. If an architect overspreads the land with 
beautiful and commodious churches, to which many 
neighborhoods resort for edification and delight, we will 
not ask him, Why have you spent your life upon these, 
rather than upon a single towering cathedral ? The truth 
is, an almost epic unity and interest pervades these vol- 
umes, notv/ithstanding the piecemeal nature of their in- 
gredients. They tell an eventful story, as they proclaim 
the life-like movement of the country in its varied histori- 
cal, political, material, intellectual, moral, and spiritual 
relations. Even had Mr. Everett reserved his powers for 
one huge work, we presume he must have divided and 
subdivided it into chapters and sections. Now here is a 
huge book, divided not indeed into chapters, but into 
profound and brilliant orations and addresses, which 
grew so, as it were, by nature, and were not artificially 
cut and carved out by the book-maker's hand. When 
high merit is presented to us in one form, why should we 

* Poetry of Travelling in the United States, by Caroline Gil man. 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 235 

complain of that form, and wonder that it comes in no 
other ? Must Shakespeare be arraigned for working up 
his plots into five dramatic acts, instead of expanding 
them into the twelve books of a Paradise Lost? or shall 
Horace be disparaged, for not assuming the exact in- 
dividuality of Maro? Mr. Everett has met the demand 
of his generation, by assisting to shape and direct its 
mighty but vague aspirings. If he has not written a 
treatise in three volumes, let him console himself with 
the thought that he has been doing something better, — 
he has not thrown his life away, — he has aided to stamp 
an age I We give all honor to the meritorious produ- 
cers of three, six, or nine connected volumes. But we 
suspect several of these fortunate writers will be among 
the first candidly to confess that Mr. Everett did some- 
thing to stir the atmosphere which breathed or summoned 
their fine creations into life. Such boast he may make 
with Coleridge, but not, like Coleridge, lament his abused 
and misdirected powers. There are some judicious ob- 
servations on a subject allied to this, in Lord Jeffrey's 
article on the Memoirs of Sir James Mackintosh. They 
were, perhaps, intended as an indirect justification of the 
critic's own literary career, as well as that of the writer 
reviewed ; and Mr. Everett himself is entitled to apply 
them to the multifariously detailed labors of his past 
literary life. Speaking of Sir James's deferring the ex- 
ecution of his larger projects, in order to enlighten the 
public mind through the pages of reviews and other jour- 
nals. Lord Jeffrey says : — 

" For our own parts, we have long been of opinion, that a man 
of powerful understanding and popular talents, who should devote 
himself to the task of announcing principles of vital importance to 



236 ORATORY OP EDWARD EVERETT. 

society, and render the discussion of them familiar, by the medium 
of popular journals, would probably do more to direct and accel- 
erate the rectification of public opinion upon all practical questions, 
than by any other use he could possibly make of his faculties. 
His name, indeed, might not go down to posterity in connection 
with any work of celebrity, and the greater part even of his con- 
temporaries might be ignorant of the very existence of their bene- 
factor. But the benefits conferred would not be the less real; nor 
the conferring of them less delightful ; nor the gratitude of the 
judicious less ardent and sincere." 

Bat even as a substantive literary treasure, we regard 
these volumes as equally honorable to the American 
press with other more consolidated productions. Why 
should not a collection of orations possess a value as 
positive and absolute as a history or a treatise ? Could 
classical literature, for instance, endure the extinction of 
the speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero, any more than 
of the writings of Thucydides and Seneca ? Proud as 
we are of the histories of Sparks, Prescott, and Bancroft, 
yet we cannot admit that, as a whole, the addresses of 
Mr. Everett are at all less creditable to the country, or 
less beneficial in their tendency. They were composed 
and delivered under circumstances eminently adapted to 
stimulate the utmost efforts of the intellect. At the cele- 
brations and dies fasti which called them forth, their 
author was not invited as a mere portion of the pageant, 
or to play an assigned part to secure the ceremonial from 
failure. The whole surrounding community looked to 
him for an instructive expression of the very spirit of the 
occasion, as well as of their own cherished and unspoken 
interest and sentiments in regard to it. The range of 
time embracing the production and delivery of these ad- 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 237 

dresses, may well be regarded as a brilliant epoch in the 
history of New England. The announcement, that Mr. 
Everett was to be the speaker for the day, awakened 
unusual anticipations far and near. The audiences, 
crowded to overflowing, were in a large measure com- 
posed of the most distinguished men in the country, of 
every profession, with all that was attractive and accom- 
plished, in the best degree, of the other sex. No tinsel 
oratory, no commonplace declamation, could send au- 
diences like these to their homes in a mood of perfect 
gratification. Nor were the charms of delivery, — the 
severe simplicity, yet graceful elegance of manner, — the 
voice, that could glide at will between trumpet-tone and 
an almost feminine pathos, — the eye, that could at once 
command multitudes with its fiery gaze, and yet seem to 
search the thoughts of every individual,* — and, espe- 
cially, the exhibition of a glowing enthusiasm, ever ready 
to break forth, but ever repressed and chastened by the 
reins of a firm self-control, — at all adequate, of them- 
selves, to satisfying the demands of the particular audi- 
ences whom the occasions in question assembled together. 
There must be discussion and speculation ; the phi- 
losophy of the subject in hand must be probed to its 
depths ; there must be novelty in the facts and reflec- 
tions presented, but without antics or extravagances of 



^ The portrait prefixed to these volumes presents, in many respects, a 
happy resemblance. But every distinguished orator ought to be consigned 
to some effigies in action. The birds of Audubon, the sculpture of Chat- 
ham, belonging to the city of Charleston, and the Belvidcre Apollo, suggest 
the immense difference in art between repose and activity. How -would the 
admirers of Mr. Everett prize a likeness of him, taken in the act of lifting, 
as it were, from their feet, a crowded audience in Faneuil Hall ! 



238 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

thought ; there must be sympathetic, but reasonable 
appeals to that consciousness of a high future destiny, 
which is the irrepressible sentiment of American bosoms. 
With all these requisites Mr. Everett came well pre- 
pared, from the stores of his immense cultivation, and 
the workings of his fervid genius, to represent the teem- 
ing thoughts of the day. Called upon a hundred times 
for the performance of these arduous tasks, he has never 
failed to gratify the public expectation. In the facility 
with which he has ever consented to appear before his 
fellow-citizens, he has shown equal kindness and intre- 
pidity, for it is long since he could expect to increase his 
reputation, or incur no risk of possibly diminishing it. 
Such are some of the circumstances which may enable 
us, in part, to form a due estimate of the volumes we 
are examining. 

They whose good fortune it is to have been present 
on most, or many, of these occasions, enjoy a rare advan- 
tage in perusing the present publication. The excite- 
ment of recollection here surpasses in its effects the ex- 
citement of novelty. Very many of the addresses are 
associated with the idea of gala-day triumphs, — 'of 
delightful anticipations previously cherished, — of refined 
and densely crowded assemblages, — of the electric sym- 
pathies inspired by such scenes, — of the pride and admi- 
ration felt for the orator by whole communities, — of the 
curiosity experienced .by those who were strangers to his 
person, — of the intense and never-wearied attention 
which listened to the last, and would have been glad of 
more ; and then, of the separation, often to distant 
homes, with the memory of what had been heard pro- 
longing the pleasure, and renewing it afterwards for 



ORATORY OP EDWARD EVERETT. 239 

many days, as an era or privilege in life. For our own 
part, stationed here at the remote South, we necessarily 
have enjoyed but few opportunities of personally listen- 
ing to these performances. But most of them we pe- 
rused at their first publication, and now, as we read them 
again in their collective form, we seem to be renewing a 
pleasure, as it were, but of yesterday, so deep was the 
influence which many years ago they exerted upon our 
minds. 

Nor must it be understood that our orator affected 
to produce impressions only on refined and brilliant as- 
semblages. Many of his happiest essays were prepared 
for the laboring classes of society. His addresses to these 
classes, combined with Dr. Channing's Lecture on Self- 
Culture, were as opportune as they were elaborate, and 
probably did as much, in proportion, to satisfy and ele- 
vate the toiling, yet questioning masses of the community 
around, as was effected with more " observation " in a 
larger field by the religious zeal of Whitfield and Wesley. 
We cannot imagine how the Socialist question can be 
more convincingly met, than in Mr. Everett's Lecture on 
the Workingmen's Party. 

In preparing these publications anew^ for the press, we 
perceive that the author has very diligently and conscien- 
tiously employed the critical pruning-knife. Seldom have 
we known such unrelenting judgments passed by a writer 
of mature life upon the style of his earlier years. Some 
of the compositions, in fact, may be said to be in a de- 
gree rewritten. It must have been entirely a matter of 
personal interest with himself, for we presume the public 
would not have demanded the numerous emendations in 
question, and we have never known his writings charac- 



240 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

terized as loose or incorrect. We understand that some 
critic in a New Orleans paper, in a notice of the present 
publication, stigmatizes this dressing up anew of one's 
printed lucubrations as an unwarrantable liberty. The 
censure seems to us unfounded. Surely the purchasers 
of previous editions have no right to complain, for they 
have enjoyed a fair quid pro quo in the best which the 
author had to give them at the earlier period. Nor is the 
existing public in any manner abused, for Mr. Everett 
ingenuously announces that the productions of his youth 
required some amendment, which he has here endeav- 
ored to bestow upon them. The only parties we can 
imagine as likely to be aggrieved are the booksellers, 
who may possibly retain copies of the uncorrected ad- 
dresses on their shelves. But we much doubt whether 
copies enough remain to inflict severe injury in this 
quarter, at least beyond what can be more than re- 
paid by a supply of the same article in a fresh and im- 
proved condition. With regard to the general qujestion, 
as a point of mere literary ethics, we believe that the 
practice adverted to can be defended by various consid- 
erations. Certainly a writer may be supposed anxious to 
transmit his productions to posterity in a state as near 
perfection as possible. The inquiry of the future reader 
will be, not at what age in life they were composed, but 
by whom they were composed, and if they were finally 
published or not with the author's sanction. A writer 
of high and generous aims will naturally wish his works 
to produce the most beneficial impression, whether his 
name be connected with them or not. If the name ac- 
company them, he must wish it associated with as much 
literary excellence as he can personally and fairly confer. 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 241 

The world has never yet, that we have learned, com- 
plained of " new and improved editions." The practice 
of the brightest and most revered authors of ancient and 
modern times can be alleged, if it were necessary, in 
defence of the instance before us. And as to German 
authors, their little fingers are thicker, in this respect, 
than Mr. Everett's loins. Nothing is more common 
with them, than to rewrite successive editions of the 
same work, until at length it would be hard to recognize 
an identity between the earlier and later issues. We 
remember to have once translated a rather bulky treatise 
of Eichhorn on the Pentateuch, and being, a few years 
later, solicited to furnish it for a well-known periodical, 
we found that subsequent editions had so far changed 
the individuality of the original work, as to require, not 
a revision, but an absolutely new translation. 

It may be interesting to our readers to compare a para- 
graph or two, in which Mr. Everett has called up to his 
side his earlier self, to inspect and correct the young 
gentleman's exercises. Perhaps they will think, with 
ourselves, that in some, though not in all instances, the 
pupil's phraseology may be preferred to his preceptor's. 
We will take the first example from the opening page. 

EDITION OF 1824. 

" Mr. President and Gentlemen : — In discharging the honor- 
able trust of being the public organ of your sentiments on this 
occasion, I have been anxious that the hour, which we here pass 
together, should be occupied by those reflections exclusively which 
belong to us as scholars. Our association in this fraternity is 
academical ; we engaged in it before our Alma Mater dismissed 
us from her venerable roof, to wander in the various paths of 
life ; and we have now come together in the academical holidays, 
21 



242 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

from every variety of pursuit, from almost every part of our 
country, to meet on common ground, as the brethren of one liter- 
ary household. The professional cares of life, like the conflict- 
ing tribes of Greece, have proclaimed to us a short armistice, that 
we may come up in peace to our Olympia. 

" But from the wide field of literary speculation, and the innu- 
merable subjects of meditation which arise in it, a selection must 
be made. And it has seemed to me proper that we should direct 
our thoughts, not merely to a subject of interest to scholars, but 
to one that may recommend itself as peculiarly appropriate to us. 
If ' that old man eloquent, whom the dishonest victory at Chss- 
ronea killed with report,' could devote fifteen years to the com- 
position of his Panegyric on Athens, I shall need no excuse to a 
society of American scholars, in choosing for the theme of an 
address on an occasion like this, the peculiar motives to intellectual 
exertion in America. In this subject, that curiosity which every 
scholar feels in tracing and comparing the springs of mental 
activity, is heightened and dignified by the important connection 
of the inquiry Avith the condition and prospects of our native land." 
EDITION OF 1850. 

" Mr. President and Gentlemen : — In discharging the honor- 
able trust which you have assigned to me on this occasion, I am 
anxious that the hour which we pass together should be exclu- 
sively occupied with those reflections w^hich belong to us as 
scholars. Our association in this fraternity is academical; we 
entered it before our Alma Mater dismissed us from her venerable 
roof; and we have now come together, in the holidays, from 
every variety of pursuit, and every part of the country, to meet 
on common ground, as the brethren of one literary household. 
The duties and cares of life, like the Grecian states in time of 
war, have proclaimed to us a short armistice, that we may come 
up in peace to our Olympia. 

" On this occasion, it has seemed proper to me that we should 
turn our thoughts, not merely to some topic of literary interest, 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 243 

but to one which concerns us as American scholars. I have 
accordingly selected, as the subject of our inquiry, the circum- 
stances favorable to the jorogress of literature in the United States 
of America. In the discussion of this subject, that* curiosity 
which every scholar naturally feels in tracing and comparing the 
character of the higher civilization of different countries, is at 
once dignified and rendered practical by the connection of the 
inquiry with the condition and prospects of his native land." 

The next specimen is from a subsequent oration. 

EDITION OF 1825. 

" Fellow-Citizens : — The voice of patriotic and filial duty has 
called us together, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of an ever- 
memorable day. The subject which this occasion presents to our 
consideration almost exceeds the grasp of the human mind. The 
appearance of a new state in the great family of nations is one of 
the most important topics of reflection that can ever be addressed 
to us. In the case of America, the interest, the magnitude, and 
the difficulty of this subject are immeasurably increased. Our 
progress has been so rapid, the interval has been so short be- 
tween the first plantations in the wilderness and the full develop- 
ment of our political institutions ; there has been such a visible 
agency of single characters in affecting the condition of the coun- 
try, such an almost instantaneous expansion of single events into 
consequences of incalculable importance, that we find ourselves 
deserted by almost all the principles and precedents drawn from 
the analogy of other states. Men have here seen, felt, and 
acted themselves, what in most other countries has been the 
growth of centuries. 

" Take your station, for instance, on Connecticut River. Every- 
thing about you, whatsoever you behold or approach, bears wit- 
ness that you are a citizen of a powerful and prosperous state. 
It is just seventy years since the towns, which you now contem- 
plate with admiration as the abodes of a numerous, increasingi 



244 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

refined, enterprising population, safe in the enjoyment of life's 
best blessings, were wasted and burned by the savages of the 
wilderness ; and their inhabitants by hundreds — the old and the 
young, the minister of the Gospel, and the mother with her new- 
born babe — were awakened at midnight by the war-whoop, 
dragged from their beds, and marched with bleeding feet across 
the snow-clad mountains, — to be sold as slaves into the corn- 
fields and kitchens of the French in Canada. Go back eighty 
years farther; and the same barbarous foe is on the skirts of 
your oldest settlements, at your own doors. As late as 1676, 
ten or twelve citizens of Concord were slain or carried into cap- 
tivity, who had gone to meet the savage hordes in their attack on 
Sudbury, in which the brave Captain Wadsworth and his com- 
panions fell." 

EDITION OF 1850. 

" Fellow-Citizens : — The subject which the present occasion 
presents to our consideration is of the highest interest. The 
appearance of a new state in the great family of nations is one of 
the most important topics of reflection that can ever be addressed 
to us. In the case of America, the magnitude and the difficulty 
of the subject are greatly increased by peculiar circumstances. 
Our progress has been so rapid ; the interval has been so short 
between the first plantations in the wilderness and the full devel- 
opment of our political system ; there has been such a visible 
agency of single characters in affecting the condition of the coun- 
try, such an almost instantaneous expansion of single events into 
consequences of incalculable importance, that we find ourselves 
deserted by the principles and precedents drawn from the analogy 
of other states. Men have here seen, felt, and acted themselves, 
what in most other countries has been the growth of centuries. 

" Take your station, for instance, on Connecticut River. Every- 
thing about you, whatever you behold or approach, bears witness 
that you belong to a powerful and prosperous state. But it is 
only seventy years since the towns which you now contemplate 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 245 

with admiration, as the abodes of a numerous, refined, enterpris- 
ing population, safe in the enjoyment of life's best blessings, were 
wasted and burned by the savages of the wilderness ; and their 
inhabitants, in large numbers, — the old and the young, the min- 
ister of the Gospel, and the mother with her new-born babe, — 
were awakened at midnight by the war-whoop, dragged from 
their beds, and marched with bleeding feet across the snow-clad 
mountains, to be sold as slaves to the French in Canada. Go 
back eighty years farther, and the same barbarous foe is on the 
skirts of your oldest settlements, — at your own doors. As late 
as 1676, ten or twelve citizens of Concord were slain or carried 
into captivity, who had gone to meet the Indians in their attack 
on Sudbury, in which the brave Captain Wadsworth and his 
companions fell." 

Whatever correction our author might see fit to apply 
to his writings, he is at least to be congratulated for hav- 
ing avoided the affectations into which some of his con- 
temporaries were betrayed. He confesses and laments 
having made Johnson and Burke his models in compo- 
sition ; yet rarely, if ever, is their faulty manner conspic- 
uous in his productions. On the other hand, he may 
owe to his study and admiration of those great masters 
his unsurpassed flow of pure and nearly perfect English 
diction. Although he had lived several of his most imi- 
tative years in Germany, and had perused with youthful 
fervor the popular authors of that country, yet we find in 
his style no trace of German influence. He was just as 
much tempted as others have been, and perhaps, by rea- 
son of his mode of education, more so, to dress up a feeble 
or commonplace thought with oracular obscurity or fan- 
tastic outlandishness; but he disdained the unworthy- 
foppery, and renounced in advance the feverish and un- 
21 # 



246 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

natural popularity which, in some quarters, such arts are 
apt to gain. In his most ambitious flights, he is never 
"transcendental"; in his most pointed sentences, never 
otherwise than purely idiomatic. We doubt whether he 
ever calls Washington, in the affected ethical slang of 
twenty years ago, " a true man," and are pretty confident 
that he does not talk of the " mission " of America among 
the nations. Steeped as he has been all his life in every 
variety of foreign literatures, the indigenous redolence 
of his style is remarkable. The only paragraph in these 
volumes, so far as we remember, of which the savor is 
not as essentially English as that of Mr. Clay himself, is 
the following, which reminds us, though not offensively, 
of the piquant vivacity of Voltaire, or some other French 
philosopher, applied to a grave and profound subject. 

"The first king was a fortunate soldier, and the first nobleman 
was one of his generals ; and government has passed by descent 
to their posterity, with no other interruption than has taken place 
when some new soldier of fortune has broken in upon this line of 
succession, in favor of himself and of his generals. The people 
have passed for nothing in the plan ; and whenever it has oc- 
curred to a busy genius to put the question, By what right is 
government thus exercised and transmitted? the common an- 
swer, as we have seen, has been, By divine right ; while, as the 
great improvement on this doctrine, men have been consoled with 
the assurance that such was the original contract." 

It is common to hear Mr. Everett characterized, in an 
exclusive way, as " a magnificent declaimer." In the 
better sense of the word the appellation is correct, al- 
though it conveys but a very partial account of his ora- 
tory. Declamation is one of those terms to which dis- 
paraging ideas have been attached, in consequence of the 



ORATORY OP EDWARD EVERETT. 247 

spurious and inadequate attempts that are every day 
made to exhibit the excellent reality. Genuine declama- 
tion has in all ages been among the highest efforts of hu- 
man art. It is an appeal to the nobler passions and sen- 
timents of an audience, when reason is supposed to have 
accomplished its office. It invests familiar or forgotten 
truths with their due grandeur and importance, and en- 
kindles an interest in them, which is otherwise too apt 
to languish. There is room for the display of tran- 
scendent skill and power, in the topics, the phrases, the 
methods, which a speaker employs for these purposes. 
Declamation is the poetry of eloquence. The declama- 
tory passages of the ancient orators are impressed on the 
memory of every reader of the classics. The Old and 
New Testaments also abound in the happiest instances. 
The volumes before us present several admirable speci- 
mens. But we are surprised to observe, in a continuous 
perusal of the whole, how very rare, comparatively, is the 
declamatory element; we mean, of course, only in its 
higher sense, the inferior sort never having, that we 
know, been charged upon the author. Mr. Webster him- 
self, even in his deliberative speeches, to say nothing of 
his efforts on the rostrum, is more of a declaimer than 
Mr. Everett. The predominant, nay, almost the entire 
character of the volumes before us, is didactic. The au- 
thor enters, as we have already intimated, into the phi- 
losophy of every subject; and, besides, if his theme be 
an historical event, he brings forward a new store of illus- 
trative facts and incidents, unknown to the current gen- 
eration, whom he thus renders as familiar with it as 
if they themselves had been among its busiest actors. 
Then, when he indulges in declamation, the fervid Ian- 



248 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

guage springs as naturally from these speculations and 
verities, as the gorgeous emblazonment of the clouds 
round the setting sun proceeds from his illumining rays. 
The versatility and scope of the author's mind may be 
conceived from the immense variety and importance of 
the topics which he has been called upon to discuss for 
the benefit of his fellow-citizens. It seems as if they 
had supposed he must know and could talk about every- 
thing that is experienced beneath the circuit of the sun. 
For instance, he investigates, at Harvard College, in an 
original vein, the circumstances favorable to the progress 
of American literature, — traces, at Plymouth, the vast 
consequences that flowed from the first settlement of 
New England, — describes, at Concord, with the graphic 
pencil of a contemporary, the earlier battles of the Revo- 
lution, — elucidates, at Cambridge, the distinctive prin- 
ciples of the American constitutions, — institutes, in 
Faneuil Hall, by a happy stroke of genius, a parallel 
between the lives and characters of Adams and Jeffer- 
son, whose twin-death, on one and the same day, fur- 
nishes a sort of key-note with which the eulogy harmo- 
nizes throughout, — takes occasion, in one of his Fourth 
of July orations, to give a general and learned history of 
Liberty itself, — erects a literary monument, at the dedi- 
cation of one in stone, to the memory of John Harvard, 
— addresses, while on a tour in the Western States, three 
large assemblies in different places, with something spe- 
cifically appropriate to each occasion, — characterizes, at 
Charlestown, with the fondness of a son of Massachu- 
setts, the primal settlement of his native State, — then, 
with equal familiarity, discourses, before several rising 
Institutes, on the importance of scientific knowledge to 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 249 

practical men, and on the encouragement to its pursuit, 
his style being here in beautiful keeping with his subject- 
matter, no longer elaborate and ornate as elsewhere, but 
plain, simple, affectionate even, — lectures, at Charlestown, 
on the Workingmen's Party, among which, with adroit 
ingenuity, he succeeds in ranking every decent class in 
the community, placing, as we have heard, an effectual 
extinguisher on some threatening agrarian agitations of 
the day, — expatiates again, and mostly in new trains of 
thought, on the advantage of knowledge to worldly men, 

— exhausts, at Washington, the subject of African Colo- 
nization, — demonstrates, at a meeting in St. Paul's 
Church, Boston, the importance of assisting education 
in the Western States, — urges on, at Faneuil Hall, in 
what we regard as the most Demosthenean of his 
speeches, the completion of the Bunker-Hill Monument, 

— compresses into a lecture, at Salem, the whole merits 
of the great Temperance question, — unfolds, in an ora- 
tion at Worcester, the intimate connection between the 
Seven Years' war and the war of our Independence, — 
discusses, at Yale College, in what is perhaps, in point 
of style, the most finished performance of the collection, 
the education of mankind, — discriminates, before the 
Massachusetts Agricultural Society, the peculiar advan- 
tages of the American farmer, — pronounces, at the re- 
quest of the young men of Boston, a very elaborate 
eulogy on the life and character of La Fayette, evincing 
here a felicitous talent for narrative, — talks over, in 
Lexington, like an actor in the scene, the Revolutionary 
fight at that place, introducing some curious and appo- 
site memorials of John Hancock and other worthies of 
the time, — singles out, for his theme at Beverly, the 



250 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

youth of Washington, which he demonstrates to have 
been a remarkably providential preparation for that 
hero's subsequent career, — argues, at Amherst College, 
in a fine vein of philosophy and with large inductions 
from the history of science, the favorable influence of 
education on liberty, knowledge, and morals, — exhibits, 
at South Deerfield, in commemoration of the battle of 
Bloody Brook, the same familiarity with the Indian 
wars, that he has elsewhere shown with the battles of 
the Revolution, and ingeniously defends the Indian poli- 
cy of the Pilgrim Fathers, — sketches, before the Boston 
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the boy- 
hood and youth of Franklin, and here indulges, contrary 
to his w^ont, in a sportive, conversational strain of wit 
and humor, — maintains, on the Fourth of July, at Low- 
ell, that the prohibition of colonial manufactures by the 
mother country was one of the chief grievances that 
resulted in the American Revolution, — defends, before 
the American Institute of the city of New York, the 
principle of protection to manufactures, which he shows 
to have been a favorite policy in all periods of our coun- 
try's history, — comes, in Faneuil Hall, to the rescue of 
the languishing subscription for the long Western Rail- 
road, in a somewhat dashing speech, which shows, how- 
ever, a very minute and extensive knowledge of the sub- 
ject, — elucidates, at Springfield, the influence of the 
religion of the Pilgrims on the institutions of our coun- 
try, — contends, in after-dinner speeches, at Boston and 
Charlestovvn, for the continuance of the militia system, 
holding now the office of Governor of the State, which 
he continues to occupy several years onward, — person- 
ates, in an address at the Harvard Centennial Celebra- 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 251 

tion, the venerable Winthrop proposing to the govern- 
ment of the infant Colony a tax in behalf of the College, 
probably, as the orator thinks, the first ever laid for the 
support of public education, — strikes some appropriate 
and happy chord, on each occasion, when toasted at an 
anniversary celebration in Dedham, at a cattle-show in 
Danvers, and at a festival of the Irish Charitable Society 
in Boston, — eulogizes, at a meeting of the Boston Prison 
Discipline Society, the special objects of that institution, 
— descants, at Williams College, in a tone of unusual 
elevation, on the advantages both of superior and of 
popular education, — acknowledges, at a public scholas- 
tic examination, his indebtedness to the Boston schools, 
which had been the best friends of his youth, — specu- 
lates, before the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic As- 
sociation, in a profound, but familiarly illustrative way 
peculiar to himself, on the vast importance of the me- 
chanic arts, — then speaks Indianee, officially, with an 
Indian delegation, — then renders an affecting tribute to 
Dr. Bowditch, — then another to the surviving Revolu- 
tionary heroes, — describes Education, in a convention 
at Martha's Vineyard, as the nurse of the mind, — in- 
dulges in tender, boyish reminiscences at Dr. Abbott's 
jubilee in Exeter, — brings out, with great power and 
clearness, before the Boston Mercantile Library Associa- 
tion, various fundamental ideas on accumulation, prop- 
erty, capital, and credit, — illustrates the importance of 
education in a republic, at a School Convention at 
Taunton, where he introduces, with so much eflfect, the 
celebrated letter of Elihu Burritt, — pronounces a gallant 
speech at a Centennial Anniversary of the settlement of 
Barnstable, — recommends at Barre, to the citizens of 



252 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

Massachusetts, with exceeding plainness and force of 
language, the system of Normal Schools, — celebrates at 
Springfield, in words of jubilant gratulation, and with 
spirited, yet true sketches of the approaching future, the 
opening of the great Railroad, which he had before done 
something at Faneuil Hall to promote, — speaks, to 
the Scots' Charitable Society, w^ith more than common 
elegance, tenderness, point, and enviable reminiscence, 
— delivers, at the opening of the first course of Lowell 
Lectures in Boston, a long and interesting sketch of its 
founder, whose testamentary munificence was equally 
honorable to his native city and to his OAvn memory, — 
acquits himself, on fourteen different occasions, while 
Ambassador in England, with much grace and propriety, 
but with more diplomatic generality of phrase, and less 
eloquence and impressiveness, than he is accustomed to 
display at home, — renders twice at Plymouth, after his 
return to his native land, fresh tributes to the memory 
of the Pilgrims, — signalizes his inauguration into the 
Presidency of Harvard College, by a rich, solid, and well- 
timed tractate on university education, — presents some 
fine views on medical education at the opening of the 
new Medical College in Boston, — pleads, in Faneuil 
Hall, in behalf of the starving Irish, — solicits aid for the 
colleges of Massachusetts before committees of the Legis- 
lature of that State, in two successive speeches, the lat- 
ter of which appears to us the strongest and closest piece 
of argument in the collection, — obeys the call of the 
same Legislature in pronouncing before them a compre- 
hensive and adequate eulogy on John Quincy Adams, — 
indulges in a strain of familiarity and good humor at the 
opening of a High School in Cambridge, — despatches, 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 253 

at a dinner of the American Scientific Association in the 
same city, some current objections against such institu- 
tions, — commends, at a cattle-show in Dedham, the life 
of the farmer, — commemorates again the nineteenth of 
April at Concord, exactly one quarter of a century after 
his graphic oration at that place among the earliest of 
his celebrities, and indulges chiefly in conciliatory senti- 
ments towards England, — and, lastly, proves, before the 
Massachusetts Bible Society, the intimate connection, 
in all ages and nations, between vital Christianity and 
the use of the Scriptures in the vernacular tongues. 

What a life to have led ! Or rather, what fruitage 
falling from the topmost boughs of a tree, whose life be- 
low must have been so busy in exhausting rich soils, 
assimilating all finer elements, and expanding beneath 
the happy influences of opportunity and Providence! 

We regret much that no index of subjects was pre- 
pared and affixed to the present publication. It would 
have contributed largely to the future convenience of 
many a reader, and would have conveyed a more com- 
plete idea of the author's labors than the mere general 
announcement, in the table of contents, of an oration 
pronounced here, and an address delivered there. The 
lack of such an index is quite imperfectly supplied by the 
preceding catalogue raisonne of the topics discussed in 
these volumes. 

Having thus, as we trust, with sufficient readiness and 
fulness, attested the eminent merits of this collection, we 
shall now, with some diffidence, animadvert on what we 
are constrained to regard the defects, though few, which 
the perusal of it has brought to our notice. Dealing with 
a writer of less mark, we should probably have declined 

22 



254 ORATORY OF EDAVARD EVERETT. 

the unwelcome task ; but if there are certain popular 
errors and corruptions of style, which may be likely to 
take shelter and sanction beneath Mr. Everett's example, 
so much the more is it the critic's duty to point them 
out, and rescue our literature from the dangers that 
threaten it. 

A profound writer, in a late number of the Edinburgh 
Review, closes a long article on the History of the Eng- 
lish Language with the following impressive exhortation : 
" When we reflect on the enormous breadth, both of the 
Old World and the New, over which this noble language 
is either already spoken, or is fast spreading, and the im- 
mense treasures of literature which are consigned to it, 
it becomes us to guard it with jealous care, as a sacred 
deposit, — not our least important trust in the heritage of 
humanity. Our brethren in America must assist us in the 
task.^^ Let the ensuing criticisms be accepted as a very 
brief response, on our part, to this earnest and flattering 
challenge. 

We would first notice a few phrases, probably of Amer- 
ican origin, against which we have long cherished an 
instinctive suspicion, as trespassers on the domain of 
pure English. They are such expressions as " in our 
midst^^' " reliable,''^ " in this connection,''^ " acquit mij duty J'' 
&c. As they have been but recently introduced into the 
language, and are in general carefully avoided by the pur- 
est writers, while sound philological reasons, as we pre- 
sume, might be arrayed against them, we dismiss them, 
without further remark, as slips of the author's pen. 

We observe that Mr. Everett seems quite attached to 
the French form of speech, in such expressions as being 
arrived^ we are arrived, I am come, corresponding to etant 



ORATORY OF EDAYARD EVERETT. 255 

arrive, etc. We are aware that these phrases are justi- 
fied by very extensive and authentic usage, and by the 
Gallic element which still, here and there, lingers in our 
tonofue. But this use of the substantive verb before neu- 
ter participles with a passive termination, is so much in 
conflict with the general habitudes of our syntax, that we 
have no doubt it will gradually retire before a more com- 
plete and symmetrical growth of the language. The 
very circumstance, that it attracts attention as an excep- 
tional form, is a proof that it is felt to be not quite natu- 
ral, — and, since a more purely English expression can 
always be substituted for it, and, in fact, even now enjoys 
as wide and reputable an acceptation as its rival, the 
time, we think, is not distant, when the more vernacular 
phrase must be exclusively employed. We can conceive 
of no advantage in retaining the foreign form, except as 
a memorial of the toils of our distant juvenile forefathers, 
in conning their French conjugations. 

Another favorite habit of the author is to employ the 
words doctor and doctors for physician and physicians. 
Except in very colloquial and domestic usage, this phra- 
seology, we believe, is nearly extinct. As doctors of 
every name have now become so profusely multiplied, 
the term seems too general, as a means of formally spe- 
cifying our excellent friends of the profession. 

These verbal discussions require no apology, for all 
allow that the highest and dearest interests of humanity 
may depend upon the correct and logical use of the terms 
we employ. The establishment of right grammatical 
rules is but the establishment of channels of clear and 
accurate thought, and sustains a nearer relation to ever- 
lasting principles than is ordinarily imagined. Many a 



256 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

valuable bequest has been successfully contested, through 
some loophole of ambiguous phraseology, and the des- 
tinies of the Christian Church have more than once hung 
on the definition of a term. The movst interesting to 
man, of all the appellations applied to the Deity himself, 
is The Word. 

To go, however, from the criticism of words to that of 
things, though such transition crosses no very wide gulf: 
We perceive (Vol. I. p. 319) that continued currency 
is allowed to the old story of Shakespeare's getting his 
livelihood by holding horses at the door of a theatre. 
We had thought that this anecdote had been exploded 
by the researches of modern editors ; but so fluctuating 
often are these questions of literary history, that it is 
possible our author may have found some good reason 
still to regard the account as canonical. 

While in this criticising mood, we may observe that a 
few more explanatory notes would have rendered the 
edition more valuable. A brief description, for instance, 
of the particular occasion on which the oration at Lex- 
ington was delivered, would have elucidated some of 
its allusions for many readers, who are now compara- 
tively in the dark about them. Some method, also, 
might have been devised, consistent with the author's 
known modesty, to intimate at times the different official 
relations borne by him. The point of several addresses 
is in some degree lost, for the want of such information. 
For the same reason, it should have been mentioned that 
the Fourth of July celebration at Fanueil Hall, in 1838, 
was conducted for the first time on principles of total 
abstinence. 

Generally, Mr. Everett well exhausts the subjects of 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 257 

his discussions^ In his masterly address before the Mer- 
cantile Library Association, on accumulation, property, 
capital, and credit, while defending the claims of capital, 
we thought that he omitted one important principle in 
laying down what he considers " the whole doctrine of 
interest." He says nothing of the risk attendant on loans 
of money and other capital, which must evidently enter, 
as a considerable element, into the theory of interest. 
A percentage, representing such a risk, being easily cal- 
culated in ordinary times, may most fairly be charged 
for the use of the principal, on all who share its advan- 
tages and who occasion the risk, even though the capi- 
taHst be regarded as nothing more than a steward, acting 
for the public benefit. 

We expected the pleasure of re-perusing here the 
author's speech before the Horticultural Society, pro- 
nounced immediately on his return from his embassy to 
England. Both the occasion and the remarks appeared 
to us much more interesting than those appertaining to 
several addresses actually introduced. Some explana- 
tion, at least, of the circumstance would seem to be re- 
quired, as there is so free an admission of other matter. 

We have already acquitted Mr. Everett of a tendency 
to German transcendentalisms, or other over-refined 
speculations. If any portion of his two volumes must 
enforce a reluctant exception to this acquittal, it will 
perhaps be found in the following somewhat mystical 
sentence, which came upon us with a rather startling 
effect. " It may be," says he, " that the laws of the ma- 
terial universe, gravitation itself, may be resolved into 
the intelligent action of the minds by which it is inhab- 
ited and controlled, empowered to this high function by 

22 *. 



258 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

the Supreme Intellect." * This dictum, of philosophy 
is quite beyond our grasp. According to all common 
experience, the farther matter recedes from any con- 
nection with life and thought, the more subjected it 
becomes to the power of gravitation. Still, we should 
feel ourselves groping less dimly after the meaning of 
this proposition than after that of Mr. Emerson's on 
the same subject-matter, who looks for the time when 
the world shall see " the identity of the law of grav- 
itation with purity of heart " ! It is difficult enough, 
to be sure, to identify, with Mr. Everett, the eternally 
fixed, uniform, and mechanical operations of gravitat- 
ing matter with the boundless impulses, the absolute, 
spontaneous freedom, of the mind ; but to go further, 
and identify the same operations with the moral emo- 
tions and unspeakable breathings of the responsible 
spirit, is, to us, much like smelling the essence of a con- 
tradiction, or laying hands on sound, as it escapes flut- 
tering from the string. 

We have cheerfully accorded to Mr. Everett the praise 
of an unvaryingly pure taste and chastened imagina- 
tion. But there are one or two passages which we hesi- 
tate to include in our comprehensive encomium. One, 
in particular, occurring near the commencement of the 
address on the battle of Bloody Brook, strikes us as 
somewhat overstrained. Amply, however, we repeat, are 
these few falsetto notes redeemed, throughout the rest of 
the addresses. Generally speaking, never w^as a series of 
popular harangues cast in a finer mould of good sense, 
correct taste, sound reasoning, wholesome sentiment, 

* Vol. II. p. 220. 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 259 

and unaffected diction. Everything is said in the right 
way and the right proportion, as if the Elysian spirit of 
the classics had, in these pages, once more visited the 
upper air; vivacity and solidity blend with and temper 
each other ; the presiding, the pervading genius, seems 
everywhere to be wisdom ; nothing is spoken for mere 
effect ; nothing is far-fetched, yet nothing commonplace ; 
there are no ekings-out of deficient trains of thought, no 
admission of superfluous ones; but all is natural, — all 
full, calm, self-poised, onward-sweeping, transparent, and 
luminous, like a broad upland river, swollen even with 
its banks, on a bright vernal day. 

Fain, now, in conclusion, would we present our read- 
ers w^ith a copious series of the " Beauties of Edward 
Everett." But, out of the twenty or more passages which 
we had marked, in the vain hope of extracting them at 
length, the most daring presumption of a privileged con- 
tributor may venture only upon a few, referring cursorily 
to the remainder. 

The following combines two of the author's prom- 
inent excellences : in the first division, the power of 
bringing out unconsidered truths into broad and clear 
relief; in the second, a happy talent for illustrative nar- 
rative. 

" Nothing is wanting to fill up this sketch of other governments, 
but to consider what is the form in which force is exercised to 
sustain them ; and this is a standing army, at this moment the 
chief support of every government on earth except our own. As 
popular violence — the unrestrained and irresistible force of the 
mass of men long oppressed and late awakened, and bursting, in 
its wrath, all barriers of law and humanity — is unhappily the 
usual instrument by which the intolerable abuses of a corrupt 



260 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

government are removed, so the same blind force, of the same 
fearful multitude, systematically kept in ignorance both of their 
duty and of their privileges as citizens, employed in a form some- 
what different, indeed, but far more dreadful, — that of a merce- 
nary standing army, — is the instrument by which corrupt govern- 
ments are sustained. The deplorable scenes which marked the 
earlier stages of the French Revolution have called the attention 
of this age to the fearful effects of popular violence, and the 
minds of men have recoiled from the horrors which mark the 
progress of an infuriated mob. They are not easily to be exag- 
gerated. But the power of the mob is transient ; the rising sun 
most commonly scatters its mistrustful ranks ; the difficulties of 
subsistence drives its members asunder, and it is only while it ex- 
ists in mass that it is terrible. But there is a form in which the 
mob is indeed portentous ; when, to all its native terrors, it adds 
the force of a frightful permanence ; when, by a regular organiza- 
tion, its strength is so curiously divided, and, by a strict disci- 
pline, its parts are so easily combined, that each and every por- 
tion of it carries in its presence the strength and terror of the 
whole ; and when, instead of that want of concert which renders 
the common mob incapable of arduous enterprises, it is despoti- 
cally swayed by a single master mind, and may be moved in array 
across the globe. 

" I remember — if, on such a subject, I may be pardoned an 
illustration approaching the ludicrous — to have seen the two 
kinds of force brought into direct comparison. I was present at 
the second great meeting of the populace of London, in 1819, in 
the midst of a crowd of I know not how many thousands, but as- 
suredly a vast multitude, assembled in Smithfield Market. The 
universal distress was extreme ; it was a short time after the 
scenes at Manchester, at which the public mind was exasperated ; 
deaths by starvation were said not to be rare ; ruin, by the stag- 
nation of business, was general ; and some were already brooding 
over the dark project of assassinating the ministers, which was 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 261 

not long after, matured by Thistlewood and his associates, some 
of whom, on the day to which I allude, harangued this excited, 
desperate, starving assemblage. When I considered the state of 
feeling prevailing in the multitude around me, — when I looked 
in their lowering faces, heard their deep, indignant exclamations, 
reflected on the physical force concentrated, probably that of 
thirty or forty thousand able-bodied men, and, added to all this, 
that they were assembled to exercise what is in theory an un- 
doubted privilege of British citizens, — I supposed that any small 
number of troops who should attempt to interrupt them would be 
immolated on the spot. While I was musing on these things, 
and turning in my mind the commonplaces on the terrors of a 
mob, a trumpet was heard to sound, — an uncertain, but a harsh 
and clamorous blast. I looked that the surrounding stalls in the 
market should have furnished the unarmed multitude at least with 
that weapon with which Virginius sacrificed his daughter to the 
liberty of Rome ; I looked that the flying pavement should begin 
to darken the air. Another blast is heard, — a cry of ' The 
Horse-Guards ! ' ran through the assembled thousands ; the orators 
on the platform were struck mute ; and the whole of that mighty 
host of starving, desperate men incontinently took to their heels, 
in which, I must confess, — feeling no call on that occasion to be 
faithful found among the faithless, — I did myself join them. We 
had run through the Old Bailey and reached Ludgate Hill be- 
fore we found out that we had been put to flight by a single 
mischievous tool of that power, who had come triumphing down 
the opposite street on horseback, blowing a stage-coachman's 
horn." * 

See here, how a wanton charge can be retorted, and 
forced to contribute to the honor of the slandered party : — 

" A late English writer has permitted himself to say, that the 
original establishment of the United States and that of the colony 

* Vol. I. p. 116. 



262 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

of Botany Bay were pretty nearly modelled on the same plan. 
The meaning of this slanderous insinuation is, that the United 
States were settled by deported convicts, in like manner as New 
South Wales has been settled by transported felons. It is doubt- 
less true, that, at one period, the English government was in the 
habit of condemning to hard labor, as servants in the Colonies, a 
portion of those who had received the sentence of the law. If 
this practice makes it proper to compare America with Botany 
Bay, the same comparison might be made of England herself 
before the practice of transportation began, and even now, inas- 
much as a considerable number of convicts are at all times re- 
tained at home. In one sense, indeed, we might doubt whether 
the allegation were more of a reproach or a compliment. During 
the time that the colonization of America was going on the most 
rapidly, some of the best citizens of England, if it be any part of 
good citizenship to resist oppression, were immured in her prisons 
of state, or lying at the mercy of the law. 

Such were some of the convicts by whom America was set- 
tled, — men convicted of fearing God more than they feared 
man ; of sacrificing property, ease, and all the comforts of life to 
a sense of duty and the dictates of conscience ; men convicted of 
pure lives, brave hearts, and simple manners. The enterprise 
was led by Raleigh, the chivalrous convict, who unfortunately 
believed that his royal master had the heart of a man, and would 
not let a sentence of death, which had slumbered for sixteen 
years, revive and take eJBfect after so long an interval of employ- 
ment and favor. But nullum tempus occiirrit regi. The felons 
who followed next were the heroic and long-suffering church of 
Robinson, at Leyden, Carver, Brewster, Bradford, Winslow, and 
their pious associates, convicted of worshipping God according to 
the dictates of their own consciences, and of giving up all — 
country, property, and the tombs of their fathers — that they 
might do it unmolested. Not content with having driven the 
Puritans from her soil, England next enacted or put in force the 



OKATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 263 

oppressive laws wlilch colonized Maryland with Catholics and 
Pennsylvania with Quakers. Nor was it long before the Ameri- 
can plantations were recruited by the Germans, convicted of in- 
habiting the Palatinate, when the merciless armies of Louis XIV. 
were turned into that devoted region; and by the Huguenots, 
convicted of holding what they deemed the simple truth of Chris- 
tianity, when it pleased the mistress of Louis XIV. to be very 
zealous for the Catholic faith. These were followed, in the next 
century, by the Highlanders, convicted of the enormous crime, 
under a monarchical government, of loyalty to their hereditary 
prince, on the plains of Culloden ; and the Irish, convicted of 
supporting the rights of their country against what they deemed 
a foreign usurper. Such are the convicts by whom America 
was settled. 

" In this way, a fair representation of whatsoever was most 
valuable in European character — the resolute industry of one 
nation, the inventive skill and curious arts of another, the cour- 
age, conscience, principle, self-denial, of all — was winnowed out, 
by the policy of the prevailing governments, as a precious seed, 
wherewith to plant the American soil." * 

Next follows a remarkable passage, conceived and 
executed, unconsciously of course, in the best manner of 
Macaulay : — 

" If we would, on a broad, rational ground, come to a favorable 
judgment, on the whole, of the merit of our forefathers, the found- 
ers of New England, we have only to compare what they effected 
with what was effected by their countrymen and brethren in 
Great Britain. While the fathers of New England, a small band 
of individuals, for the most part of little account to the great 
world of London, were engaged, on this side of the Atlantic, in 
laying the foundations of civil and religious liberty, in a new 

* Vol. I. p. 1 59. 



264 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

commonwealth, the patriots of England undertook the same work 
of reform in that country. There were difficulties, no doubt, 
peculiar to the enterprise, as undertaken in each country. In 
Britain, there was the strenuous opposition of the friends of the 
established system ; in New England, there was the difficulty of 
creating a new state, out of materials the most scanty and inade- 
quate. If there were fewer obstacles here, there were greater 
means there. They had all the refinements of the age, which 
the Puritans are charged with having left behind them ; all the 
resources of the country, while the Puritans had nothing but 
their own slender means ; and, at length, all the resources of the 
government, — and with them they overthrew the Church, tram- 
pled the House of Lords under foot, and brought the king to the 
block. The fathers of New England, from first to last, struggled 
against almost every conceivable discouragement. While the 
patriots at home were dictating concessions to the king, and tear- 
ing his confidential friends from his arms, the patriots of America 
could scarcely keep their charter out of his grasp. While the 
former were wielding a resolute majority in Parliament, under 
the lead of the boldest spirits that ever lived, combining with 
Scotland, subduing Ireland, and striking terror into the Conti- 
nental governments, the latter were forming a frail union of the 
New-England Colonies, for immediate defence against a savage 
foe. While the ' Lord General Cromwell,' (who seems to have 
picked up this modest title among the spoils of the routed aris- 
tocracy,) in the superb flattery of Milton, 

* Guided by faith, and matchless fortitude, 
To peace and truth his glorious way had ploughed, 
And on the neck of crowned fortune proud 
Had reared God's trophies,' 

our truly excellent and incorruptible Winthrop was compelled to 
descend from the chair of state and submit to an impeachment. 

" And what was the comparative success ? There were, to 
say the least, as many excesses committed in England as in Mas- 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 265 

sacbusetts Bay. There was as much intolerance on the part of 
men just escaped from persecution, as much bigotry on the part 
of those who had themselves suffered for conscience' sake, as much 
unreasonable austerity, as much sour temper, as much bad taste, 
as much for charity to forgive, and as much for humanity to de- 
plore. The temper, in fact, of the two commonwealths was much 
the same, and some of the leading spirits played a part in both. 
And to what effect ? On the other side of the Atlantic the whole 
experiment ended in a miserable failure. The Commonwealth 
became successively oppressive, hateful, contemptible, — a great- 
er burden than the despotism on whose ruins it was raised. The 
people of England, after sacrifices incalculable of property and 
life, after a struggle of thirty years' duration, allowed the general 
who happened to have the greatest number of troops under his 
command to bring back the old system, — king, lords, and 
church, — with as little ceremony as he would employ in issuing 
the orders of the day. After asking, for thirty years, What is 
the will of the Lord concerning his people ? What is it becom- 
ing a pure church to do ? What does the cause of liberty de- 
mand, in the day of its regeneration ? there was but one cry in 
England, — What does General Monk think ? What will General 
Monk do ? Will he bring back the king with conditions, or with- 
out? And General Monk concluded to bring him back without. 
" On this side of the Atlantic, and in about the same period, the 
v,rork which our fathers took in hand was, in the main, success- 
fully done. They came to found a republican colony. They 
founded it. They came to establish a free church. They estab- 
lished what they called a free church, and transmitted to us what 
we call a free church. In accomplishing this, which they did an- 
ticipate, they brought also to pass what they did not so distinctly 
foresee, — what could not, in the nature of things, in its detail 
and circumstance, be anticipated, — the foundation of a great, 
prosperous, and growing republic. We have not been just to 
these men. I am disposed to do all justice to the memory of 



266 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

each succeeding generation. I admire the indomitable jDersever- 
ance with which the contest for principle was kept up, under 
the second charter. I reverence, this side idolatry, the wisdom 
and fortitude of the Revolutionary and Constitutional leaders ; 
but I beheve we ought to go back beyond them all for the real 
framers of the commonwealth. I believe that its foundation 
stones, like those of the Capitol of Rome, lie deep and sohd, out 
of sight, at the bottom of the walls, — Cyclopean work, the work 
of the Pilgrims, — with nothing below them but the Rock of Ages. 
I will not quarrel with their rough corners or uneven sides ; above 
all, I will not change them for the wood, hay, and stubble of 
modern builders." * 

The following peroration of the address last cited may 
venture comparison with some of the finest passages, 
embodying local associations, in ancient literatm-e : — 

" Yes, on the very spot t where we are assembled, — now 
crowned with this spacious church, surrounded by the comfort- 
able abodes of a dense population, — there were, during the first 
season after the landing of Winthrop, fewer dwellings for the 
living than graves for the dead. It seemed the will of Provi- 
dence that our fathers should be tried by the e-stremities of either 
season. When the Pilgrims approached the coast of Plymouth, 
they found it clad with all the terrors of a Northern winter. 

' The sea around was black with storms, 
And white the shores with snow.' 
" We can scarcely think now, without tears, of a company of 
men, Vt^omen, and children, brought up in tenderness, exposed, 
after several months' uncomfortable confinement on shipboard, to 
the rigors of our November and December sky, on an unknown 
and barbarous coast, whose frightful rocks even now strike terror 
into the heart of the returning mariner, though he knows that 
the home of his childhood awaits him within their enclosure. 

* Vol. I. p. 243. t Charlestown, Massachusetts. 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 267 

"The Massachusetts company arriyed at the close of June. 
No vineyards, as now, clothed our inhospitable hill-sides ; no 
blooming orchards, as at the present day, wore the livery of 
Eden, and loaded the breeze with sweet odors ; no rich pastures, 
nor waving crops, stretched beneath the eye, along the way-side, 
from village to village, as if Nature had been spreading her floors 
with a carpet fit to be pressed by the footsteps of her descending 
God ! The beauty and the bloom of the year had passed. The 
earth, not yet subdued by culture, bore upon its untilled bosom 
nothing but a dismal forest, that mocked their hunger with rank 
and unprofitable vegetation. The sun was hot in the heavens. 
The soil was parched, and the hand of man had not yet taught 
its secret springs to flow from their fountains. The wasting 
disease of the heart-sick mariner was upon the men, and the 
women and children thought of the pleasant homes of England, 
as they sank down, from day to day, and died at last for want of 
a cup of water, in this melancholy land of promise. From the 
time the company sailed from England, in April, up to the De- 
cember following, there died not less than two hundred persons, 
— nearly one a day. 

" They were buried, say our records, about the Town Hill. 
This is the Town Hill. We are gathered over the ashes of our 
forefathers. 

" It is good, but solemn, to be here. "We live on holy ground ; 
all our hill-tops are the altars of precious sacrifice. 

" This is stored with the sacred dust of the first victims in the 
cause of liberty. 

" And that * is rich from the life-stream of the noble hearts 
who bled to sustain it. 

" Here, beneath our feet, unconscious that we commemorate 
their worth, repose the meek and sainted martyrs whose flesh 
sunk beneath the lofty temper of their noble spirits ; and there 

* Bunker Hill. 



268 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

rest the heroes who presented their dauntless foreheads to the 
God of battles, when he came to his awful baptism of blood and 
of fire. 

" Happy the fate which has laid them so near to each other, 
— the early and the latter champions of the one great cause ! 
And happy we, who are permitted to reap in peace the fruits of 
their costly sacrifice ! Happy, that we can make our pious pil- 
grimage to the smooth turf of that venerable summit, once 
ploughed with the wheels of maddening artillery, ringing with all 
the dreadful voices of war, wrapped in smoke and streaming with 
blood ! Happy, that here, where our fathers sank, beneath the 
burning sun, into the parched clay, we meet, and assemble, and 
mingle sweet counsel and grateful thoughts of them, in comfort 
and peace ! " * 

The following is the way in which Adam Smith might 
have speculated on the wonderful connection and inter- 
dependence between the labors of science and the labors 
of art : — 

" But we may go a step farther, to mark the beautiful process 
by which Providence has so interlaced and wrought up together 
the pursuits, interests, and wants of our nature, that the philoso- 
pher, whose home seems less on earth than among the stars, 
requires, for the prosecution of his studies, the aid of numerous 
artificers, in various branches of mechanical industry, and, in 
return, furnishes the most important facilities to the humblest 
branches of manual labor. Let us take, as a single instance, that 
of astronomical science. It may be safely said, that the w^onderful 
discoveries of modern astronomy, and the philosophical system 
depending upon it, could not have existed but for the telescope. 
The want of the telescope kept astronomical science in its 
infancy among the ancients. Although Pythagoras, one of the 

* Vol. I. p. 245. 



ORATORY OP EDWARD EVERETT. 269 

earliest Greek philosophers, is supposed to have had some con- 
ception of the elements of the Copernican system, yet we find no 
general and practical improvement resulting from it. In fact, it 
sunk beneath the false theories of subsequent philosophers. It 
was only from the period of the discoveries made by the tele- 
scope that the science advanced with sure and rapid progress. 
Now, the astronomer does not make telescopes. I presume it 
would be impossible for a person who employed in the abstract 
study of astronomical science time enough to comprehend its pro- 
found investigations, to learn and practise the trade of making 
glass. It is not less true, that those employed in making the 
glass could not, in the nature of things, be expected to acquire 
the scientific knowledge requisite for carrying on those arduous 
calculations applied to bring into a system the discoveries made 
by the magnifying power of the telescope. I might extend the 
same remark to the other materials of which a telescope consists. 
It cannot be used to any purpose of nice observation, without 
being very carefully mounted on a frame of strong metal, which 
demands the united labors of the mathematical-instrument maker 
and the brass-founder. Here, then, in taking but one single step 
out of the philosopher's observatory, we find he needs an instru- 
ment to be produced by the united labors of the mathematical- 
instrument maker, the brass-founder, the glass-polisher, and the 
maker of glass, — four trades. He must also have an astro- 
nomical clock, and it would be easy to count up half a dozen 
trades which, directly or indirectly, are connected in making a 
clock. 

" But let us go back to the object-glass of the telescope. A 
glass-factory requires a building and furnaces. The man who 
makes the glass does not make the building. But the stone and 
brick mason, the carpenter, and the blacksmith must furnish the 
greater part of the labor and skill required to construct the 
building. When it is built, a large quantity of fuel, wood and 
wood-coal or mineral coal, of various kinds, or all together, must 

23* 



270 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

be provided ; and then the materials of which the glass is made, 
and with which it is colored, some of which are furnished by 
commerce from different and distant regions, and must be brought 
in ships across the sea. We cannot take up any one of these 
trades without immediately finding that it connects itself with 
numerous others. Take, for instance, the mason who builds the 
furnace. He does not make his own bricks, nor burn his own 
lime : in common cases, the bricks come from one place, the lime 
from another, and the sand from another. The brick-maker does 
not cut down his own wood ; it is carted or brought in boats to his 
brick-yard. The man who carts it does not make his own wagon, 
nor does the person who brings it in boats build his own boat. 
The man who makes the wagon does not make its tire. The 
blacksmith who makes the tire does not smelt the ore ; and the 
forgeman who smelts the ore does not build his own furnace (and 
there we get back to the point whence we started) nor dig his 
own mine. The man who digs the mine does not make the pick- 
axe with which he digs it, nor the pump which keeps out the 
water. The man who made the pump did not discover the prin- 
ciple of atmospheric pressure, which led to pump-making ; that 
was done by a mathematician at Florence (Torricelli), experi- 
menting in his chamber on a glass tube. And here we come 
back again to our glass, and to an instance of the close connec- 
tion of scientific research with practical art. It is plain that 
this enumeration might be pursued till every art and every sci- 
ence were shown to run into every other. 

" Not a little of the spinning machinery employed in manufac- 
turino" cotton is constructed on principles drawn from the dem- 
onstrations of transcendental mathematics, and the processes of 
bleaching and dyeing now practised are the results of the most 
profound researches of modern chemistry. And if this does not 
satisfy the inquirer, let him trace the cotton to the plantation 
where it grew, in Georgia or Alabama ; the indigo to Bengal ; 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 271 

the oil to the olive-gardens of Italy, or the fishing-grounds of the 
Pacific Ocean ; let him consider Whitney's cotton-gin, Whitte- 
more's carding-machine, the power-loom, and the spinning appa- 
ratus, and all the arts, trades, and sciences directly or indirectly 
connected with these, and I believe he will soon agree that one 
might start from a yard of coarse printed cotton, which costs ten 
cents, and prove out of it, as out of a text, that every art and 
science under heaven had been concerned in its fabric." * 

The following beautiful passage comprises, in our opin- 
ion, the whole doctrine of physical and nrioral good. The 
union, here, of profound with familiar reasoning, is quite 
characteristic of the author. 

' " But I am met with the great objection. What good will the 
monument do'^ I beg leave, sir, to exercise my birthright as a 
Yankee, and answer this question by asking two or three more, 
to which I believe it will be quite as difficult to furnish a satis- 
factory reply. I am asked. What good will the monument do ? 
And I ask, What good does anything do ? What is good ? Does 
anything do good ? The persons who suggest this objection of 
course think that there are some projects and undertakings that 
do good, and I should therefore like to have the idea o^ good ex- 
plained, and analyzed, and run out to its elements. When this 
is done, if I do not demonstrate, in about two minutes, that the 
monument does the same kind of good that anything else does, I 
will consent that the huge blocks of granite already laid should 
be reduced to gravel, and carted off to fill up the mill-pond, — for 
that, I suppose, is one of the good things. Does a railroad or a 
canal do good ? Answer, Yes. And how ? It facilitates inter- 
course, opens markets, and increases the wealth of the country. 
But what is this good for ? Why, individuals prosper and get 
rich. And what good does that do ? Is mere wealth, as an ulti- 



* Vol. I. p. 297. 



272 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

mate end, — gold and silver, without an inquiry as to their use, — 
are these a good ? Certainly not. I should insult this audience by 
attempting to prove that a rich man, as such, is neither better 
nor happier than a poor one. But as men grow rich they live 
better. Is there any good in this, stopping here ? Is mere ani- 
mal life — feeding, working, and sleeping like an ox — entitled to 
be called good? Certainly not. But these improvements in- 
crease the population. And what good does that do ? Where 
is the good of counting twelve miUions, instead of six, of mere 
feeding, working, sleeping animals ? There is, then, no good 
in the mere animal life except that it is the physical basis of that 
higher moral existence which resides in the soul, the heart, the 
conscience, in good principles, good feelings, and the good actions 
(and the more disinterested, the more entitled to be called good) 
which flow from them. Now, sir, I say that generous and patri- 
otic sentiments, sentiments which prepare us to serve our country, 
to live for our country, to die for our country, — feelings like those 
which carried Prescott, and Warren, and Putnam to the battle- 
field, are good, — good, humanly speaking, of the highest order. 
It is good to have them, good to encourage them, good to honor 
them, good to commemorate them, and whatever tends to animate 
and strengthen such feelings does as much right down practical 
good as filling up low grounds and building railroads. This is 
my demonstration. I wish, sir, not to be misunderstood. I ad- 
mit the connection between enterprises which promote the physi- 
cal prosperity of the country and its intellectual and moral im- 
provement ; but I maintain that it is only this connection that gives 
these enterprises all their value, and that the same connection 
gives a like value to everything else, which, through the channel 
of the senses, the taste, or the imagination, warms and elevates the 
heart." * 

We must find room for a piece of literary criticism, 
* Vol. I. p. 359. 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 273 

of the very highest order. The author thus argues the 
influence of pure sphitual knowledge on the progress of 
poetry. 

" Not a ray of pure spiritual illumination shines through the 
sweet visions of the father of poetry. The light of his genius, 
like that of the moon, as he descrihes it in the eighth Iliad,* is 
serene, transparent, and heavenly fair ; it streams into the deep- 
est glades, and settles on the mountain-tops of the material and 
social world ; but, for all that concerns the spiritual nature, it is 
cold, watery, and unquickening. The great test of the elevation 
of the poet's mind, and of the refinement of the age in which he 
lives, is the distinctness, power, and purity with which he con- 
ceives the s^^iritual world. In all else, he may be the observer, 
the recorder, the painter ; but in this dread sphere he must as- 
sume the province which his name imports ; he must be the 
maker : creating his own spiritual world by the highest action 
of his mind, upon all the external and internal materials of 
thought. If ever there was a poetical vision calculated, not to 
purify and to exalt, but to abase and to sadden, it is the visit of 
Ulysses to the lower regions.f The ghosts of the illustrious de- 
parted are drawn before him, by the reeking fumes of the recent 
sacrifice ; and the hero stands guard, with his drawn sword, to 
drive away the shade of his own mother from the gory trench, 
over which she hovers, hankering after the raw blood. Does it 
require an essay on the laws of the human mind, to show that 
the intellect which contemplates the great mystery of our being 
under this ghastly and frivolous imagery, has never been born to 
a spiritual life, nor caught a glimpse of the highest heaven of 
poetry ? Virgil's spiritual world was not essentially superior to 
Homer's ; but the Roman poet lived in a civilized age, and his vis- 
ions of the departed are marked with a decorum and grace which 
form the appropriate counterpart of the Homeric grossness. 

* Homer's Iliad, YUI. 551. f Odyssey, XI. 



274 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

" In Dante, for the first time in an uninspired bard, the dawn 
of a spiritual day breaks upon us. Although the shadows of su- 
perstition rested upon him, yet the strains of the prophets were 
in his ears, and the light of divine truth, strong, though clouded, 
was in his soul. As we stand with him on the threshold of the 
world of sorrows, and read the awful inscription over the portal, 
a chill, from the dark valley of the shadow of death, comes over 
the heart. The compass of poetry contains no image which sur- 
passes this dismal inscription in solemn grandeur ; nor is there 
anywhere a more delicious strain of tender poetic beauty, than 
that of the distant vesper bell, which seems to mourn for the de- 
parting day, as it is heard by the traveller just leaving his home.* 
But Dante lived in an age when Christianity, if I may so speak, 
was paganized. Much of his poem, substance as well as orna- 
ment, is heathen. Too much of his inspiration is drawn from 
the stormy passions of life. The warmth with which he glowed 
is too often the kindling of scorn and indignation, burning under 
a sense of intolerable wrong. The holiest muse may string his 
lyre, but it is too often the incensed partisan that sweeps the 
strings. The * Divine Comedy,' as his wonderful work is called, 
is much of it mere mortal satire. 

" In ' Paradise Lost,' we feel as if we were admitted to the 
outer courts of the Infinite. In that all-glorious temple of genius 
inspired by truth, we catch the full diapason of the heavenly 
organ. With its choral swell, the soul is lifted from the earth. 
In the ' Divina Commedia,' the man, the Florentine, the exiled 
Ghibelline, stands out, from first to last, breathing defiance and 
revenge. Milton, in some of his prose works, betrays the par- 
tisan also ; but in his poetry we see him in the white robes of the 
minstrel, with upturned though sightless eyes, rapt in meditation 
at the feet of the heavenly muse. Dante, in his dark vision, de- 
scends to the depths of the world of perdition, and, homeless fugi- 

*~ "Del Purgatorio, Canto VIII." 



OKATOEY OF EDWAKD EVERETT. 275 

live as he is, drags his proud and prosperous enemies down with 
him, and buries them, doubly destroyed, in the flaming sepulchres 
of the lowest hell.* Milton, on the other hand, seems almost to 
have purged ofi the dross of humanity. Blind, poor, friendless, 
in solitude and sorrow, with quite as much reason as his Italian 
rival to repine at his fortune and war against mankind, how calm 
and'unimpassioned is he, in all that concerns his own personality ! 
He deemed too highly of his divine gift, to make it the instru- 
ment of immortalizing his hatreds. One cry, alone, of sorrow at 
his blindness, one pathetic lamentation over the evil days on which 
he had fallen, bursts from his full heart. There is not a flash of 
human wrath in all his pictures of woe. Hating nothing but evil 
spirits, in the childlike simplicity of his heart, his pure hands un- 
deiiled with the pitch of the political intrigues in which he had 
lived, he breathes forth his inexpressibly majestic strains, the 
poetry not so much of earth as of heaven. 

" Can it be hoped that, under the operation of the influences to 
which we have alluded, anything superior to ' Paradise Lost ' 
will ever be produced by man ? It requires a courageous faith 
in general principles to believe it. I dare not call it a probable 
event ; but can we say it is impossible ? If, out of the wretched 
intellectual and moral elements of the Commonwealth in England, 
imparting, as they did, at times, too much of their contagion to 
Milton's mind, a poem like * Paradise Lost ' could spring forth, 
shall no corresponding fruit of excellence be produced when 
knowledge shall be universally diffused, society enlightened, ele- 
vated, and equalized, and the standard of moral and religious 
principle, in public and private affairs, raised far above its pres- 
ent level ? A continued progress in the intellectual world is con- 
sistent with all that we know of the laws that govern it, and with 
all experience. A presentiment of it lies deep in the soul of man, 
spark as it is of the divine nature. The craving after excellence, 

*- " Dell' Inferno, Cantos IX., X/' 



276 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

the thirst for truth and beauty, has never been, never can be, 
fully slaked at the fountains which have flowed beneath the touch 
of the enchanter's wand. Man listens to the heavenly strain, 
and straightway becomes desirous of still loftier melodies. It has 
nourished and strengthened, instead of satiating, his taste. Fed 
by the divine aliment, he can enjoy more, he can conceive more, 
he can himself perform more. 

" Should a poet of loftier muse than Milton hereafter appear, or, 
to speak more reverently, when the Milton of a better age shall 
arise, there is yet remaining one subject worthy his powers, — 
the counterpart of * Paradise Lost.' In the conception of this 
subject by Milton, then mature in the experience of his great 
poem, we have the highest human judgment, that this is the one 
remaining theme. In his uncompleted attempt to achieve it, we 
have the greatest cause for the doubt, whether it be not beyond 
the grasp of the human mind, in its present state of cultivation. 
But I am unwilling to think that this theme, immeasurably the 
grandest which can be contemplated by the mind of man, will 
never receive a poetical illustration proportioned to its sublimity. 
It seems . to me impossible that the time, perhaps far distant, 
should not eventually arrive, when another Milton, — divorcing 
his heart from the delights of life, — purifying his bosom from its 
angry and its selfish passions, — relieved, by happier fortunes, 
from care and sorrow, — pluming the wings of his spirit in soli- 
tude, by abstinence and prayer, — will address himself to this only 
remaining theme of a great Christian epic." * 

In the next extract, we seem to be reading one of Ad- 
dison's own shorter Spectators. 

" Consider the influence on the affairs of men, in all their rela- 
tions, of the invention of the little machine which I hold in my 
hand, (a watch,) and the other modern instruments for the meas- 

* Vol. II. p. 224. 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 277 

urement of time, various specimens of which are on exhibition 
in the halls. To say nothing of the importance of an accurate 
measurement of time in astronomical observations, nothing of the 
application of time-keepers to the purposes of navigation, how 
vast must be the aggregate effect on the affairs of life, through- 
out the civilized world, and in the progress of ages, of a conven- 
ient and portable apparatus for measuring the lapse of time ! 
Who can calculate in how many of those critical junctures, when 
affairs of weightiest import hang upon the issue of an hour, pru- 
dence and forecast have triumphed over blind casualty, by being 
enabled to measure with precision the flight of time in its small- 
est subdivisions ! Is it not something more than mere mechan- 
ism which watches with us by the sick-bed of some dear friend 
through the livelong solitude of night, enables us to count, in the 
slackening pulse, nature's trembling steps towards recovery, and 
to administer the prescribed remedy at the precise, perhaps the 
critical, moment of its application ? 

" By means of a watch, punctuality in all his duties, which, in 
its perfection, is one of the incommunicable attributes of Deity, is 
brought, in no mean measure, within the reach of man. He is 
enabled, if he will be guided by this half-rational machine, crea- 
ture of a day as he is, to imitate that sublime precision which 
leads the earth, after a circuit of five hundred millions of miles, 
back to the solstice at the appointed moment, without the loss of 
one second, no, not the millionth part of a second, for the ages on 
ages during which it has travelled that empyreal road.* What 
a miracle of art, that a man can teach a few brass wheels, and a 
little piece of elastic steel, to outcalculate himself; to give him a 
rational answer to one of the most important questions which a 
being travelling towards eternity can ask ! What a miracle, that 
a man can put within this little machine a spirit that measures the 

* " It is not, of course, intended that the sidereal year is always of pre- 
cisely the same length, but that its variations are subject to a fixed law. 
See Sir John Herschel's Astronomy, § 563." 
24 



278 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

flight of time with greater accuracy than the unassisted intel- 
lect of the profoundest philosopher, — which watches and moves 
when sleep palsies alike the hand of the maker and the mind 
of the contriver, nay, when the last sleep has come over them 
both ! 

" I saw, the other day, at Stockbridge, the watch which was 
worn on the 8th of September, 1755, by the unfortunate Baron 
Dieskau, who received his mortal wound on that day, near Lake 
George, at the head of his army of French and Indians, on the 
breaking out of the Seven Years' war. This watch, which 
marked the fierce, feverish moments of the battle as calmly as it 
has done the fourscore years which have since elapsed, is still 
going ; but the watchmaker and the military chieftain have now, 
for more than three fourths of a century, been gone where time 
is no longer counted. Frederic the Great was another, and a 
vastly more important, personage of the same war. His watch 
was carried away from Potsdam by Napoleon, who, on his rock, 
in mid-ocean, was wont to ponder on the hours of alternate disas- 
ter and triumph which filled up the life of his great fellow- 
destroyer, and had been equally counted on its dial-plate. The 
courtiers used to say that this watch stopped of its own accord 
when Frederic died. Short-sighted adulation ! for if it stopped 
at his death, as if time w^as no longer worth measuring, it was 
soon put in motion, and went on as if nothing had happened. 

" Portable watches were probably introduced into England in 
the time of Shakespeare ; and he puts one into the hand of his 
fantastic jester as the theme of his morality. In truth, if we 
wished to borrow from the arts a solemn monition of the vanity 
of human things, the clock might well give it to us. How often 
does it occur to the traveller in Europe, as he hears the hour 
told from some ancient steeple, — That iron tongue in the tower 
of yonder old cathedral, unchanged itself, has had a voice for 
every change in the fortune of nations ! It has chimed monarchs 
to their thrones, and knelled them to their tombs ; and, from its 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 279 

watchtower in the clouds, has, with the same sonorous and im- 
partial stoicism, measured out their little hour of sorrow and 
gladness, to coronation and funeral, abdication and accession, 
revolution and restoration, victory, tumult, and fire. And with 
like faithfulness, while I speak, the little monitor by my side 
warns me back from my digression, and bids me beware lest I 
devote too much of my brief hour even to its own commenda- 
tion." * 

The lovers of the Bible shall be entertained and edi- 
fied by a choice extract. 

" When the appointed time had come, the writings of Moses, 
of David, "and Isaiah, locked up in a dialect which was wasting 
away in the cities of Judah and on the hills of Palestine (a region 
at best not as large as our New England), were transfused into 
the far-reaching, widely spoken tongue, which had become the 
language of government, of commerce, and of philosophy, from 
the mouths of the Rhone to the Indus. And in this language, 
and at this critical juncture of religious history, though their 
authors were Jews, the books of the New Testament w^ere writ- 
ten in Greek. When another stupendous revolution, or rather 
series of revolutions, had transferred the sceptre of empire to 
Rome, and the Latin language had acquired an almost exclusive 
predominance in Western Europe and Northern Africa, with 
some extension in the East, among the first intellectual phenome- 
na of the new order of things we find the old Italic version of the 
Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, the parent of the Vulgate and so 
many subsequent translations. In this way, by means of the 
Roman language, which did not exist as a dialect on the lips of 
men when the earUer books of the Old Testament were written, 
— the language of a people who, in the days of Moses and David, 
were wandering a wild clan along the banks of the Tiber, — 

* Vol. II. p. 250. 



280 OKATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

through this singular medium, — rather let me say this awe- 
inspiring instrumentality, — these old Hebrew voices, mute and 
unintelligible as originally uttered, are rendered audible and 
significant to the Western Church and world. And then, as we 
descend the line of history, as the Latin and Greek, great world- 
dialects, become obsolete, — dying, dead languages, as we sig- 
nificantly call them, — and new tongues are created by the mys- 
terious power of the vocal faculty, we are to behold, as was so 
well observed by Mr. Hill, as an invariable consequence, often 
as the first result of the change, a new translation of the Scrip- 
tures. Nowhere is this so sure to be the case as in the great na- 
tional stock to which we belong. Gothic and Saxon antiquity has 
handed down to us, through the wreck of the Dark Ages, nothing 
older than portions of the paraphrases and versions of the Scrip- 
tures, which were made in those dialects respectively, not long- 
after the introduction of Christianity into Germany and Britain. 
Indeed, in the ancient Gothic tongue I am not sure that anything 
has survived but portions of the translation of the New Testa- 
ment. 

" Thus great and wide-spread families of men have been bro- 
ken up or have silently passed away, and the tongues they spoke 
have ceased to be a medium of living intercourse ; hordes of in- 
digenous shepherds (indigenous we call them) grow up into en- 
lightened states ; wild tribes of nomadic conquerors pour down 
from the North, and ripen into polished commonwealths ; undis- 
covered continents and islands, filled with strange races, are 
made, as it were, to emerge from the deep ; languages that are 
dying out mingle on the canvas of human fortune with languages 
that are coming in, like the melting images of the illusive glass, 
till it is impossible to tell where one begins or the other ends ; 
but the word of God is heard along the line of the ages, distinct 
amidst the confusion, addressing an intelligible utterance to each 
successive race in the great procession of humanity. The miracle 
of Pentecost becomes the law of human progress, and nations 
that have sprung into being cycles of ages since Moses and the 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 281 

Prophets and the Apostles wrote, still hear them speaking, every 
man in his own language." * 

Here the contributor looks to the indulgent editor, as 
if asking, May we go on? The decided, yet kindly 
shake of the head puts it out of the question, and we 
can only wish that there were space to introduce pas- 
sages, on the right foundation of government. Vol. I. 
pp. 112, 113 ; on the proclivity of despotic rulers to wars, 
illustrated by a masterly outline of modern wars, 124- 
126 ; on the Indian policy of the Pilgrims, 238, 239 ; on 
the tendency of civilization to reproduce and expand 
itself, 273-275; on the impulse given to the industrial 
arts by the mere publications of Walter Scott, who prob- 
ably never did a day's work in his life, in the ordinary 
acceptation of the term, 302 ; on the superiority of the 
Bunker Hill Monument to books in perpetuating the 
memory of the battle, 359, 360; on the unsurpassed moral 
heroism of La Fayette, 507, 508 ; on the discoveries yet 
to be effected by the growth of science, 617 - 619 ; on the 
enviable condition of these United States, so truly and 
fairly described, that the author, in his preface, needed 
not to apprehend the charge of over-strained nationality, 
400, 401 ; on the favorable influence of science upon the 
loftier kinds of poetry, Vok XL 216-219 ; on the relative 
conditions of mankind the day before and the day after 
the discovery of printing, 240, 241 ; on the magical and 
evil-absorbing influences of the steam-engine, 245 ; on 
the momentous privileges attached to the elective fran- 
chise, 316, 317 ; on the decay of the primitive simplicity 
of school-boy manners in New England, 603 ; and on 



* Vol. II. p. 669. 

24* 



282 ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 

the superiority of the Christian Scriptures to other books 
assuming the character of sacred, 672. 

We will but touch upon one topic more. It is interest- 
ing and even curious to observe how thoroughly American 
Mr. Everett is in his favorite themes and speculations. 
He seems as one born to think and to speak for his na- 
tive country. Rarely does he go beyond her limits, in 
search of subjects on which to exert his commanding 
powers. Like those animals whose color is extracted 
from the ground they grow on, he seems blended and 
identified wdth his natal soil. What is the spirit of our 
institutions ? What is the plastic life of our nation's his- 
tory and being? How may these be developed and car- 
ried out ? These are the inquiries towards which his face 
is invariably set. Even his addresses while he was am- 
bassador abroad, dwelt more on the land of his birth than 
on the brilliant and exciting scenes around him. Cam- 
bridge there reminded him of his own humbler Alma 
Mater ; the cattle-shows of England carried his thoughts 
and fancies home; and a compliment to himself brought 
forth some plea for America. Most of his writings 
correspond with this patriot tendency. It is familiarly 
known that a series of articles in defence of this country 
from his youthful pen, in the earlier numbers of the 
North American Review, attracted respectful attention 
abroad, and silenced a swarm of travellers and reviewers, 
whose richest capital consisted in slandering and depre- 
ciating everything American. In accordance with this 
darling passion of his life, or rather this bent of his na- 
ture, the two volumes which we are now to dismiss may 
be regarded as essentially a picture of the best and 
brightest side of American existence, reflected as it is 



ORATORY OF EDWARD EVERETT. 283 

from the character of the various occasions commemo- 
rated, from the orator's own manner of dealing with 
them, and from the approving sympathy and interest 
which followed him. It is not so much Mr. Everett as 
our own United States that produced these volumes ; 
most other books written among us might have been 
composed by strangers as well as by Americans; but 
these, never. They are one with the country, and apart 
from the country could not have been. If we wn'shed to 
acquaint a foreigner with what our life and institutions 
are doing, and may do to achieve their happier destinies, 
— what are the prevailing wishes, aims, tastes, thoughts, 
and habits of our more established population, — what 
we think of our duties and dangers, — what topics will 
arrest our attention and engage our interest, — what 
appeals will stir our hearts, — what, in short, are the 
most hopeful phases of our condition and prospects, — 
we would not so soon point him to the journals even of 
impartial and kindly disposed tourists, as to these uncon- 
sciously representative, but only so much the more faith- 
ful, pages of Edward Everett. His country owes him a 
debt of gratitude and honor, which she must take care 
to pay. 

1850. 



PERCIVAL'S POEMS. 



Mr. Percival has now given to the public three volumes 
of poetry, and has acquired a flattering distinction in our 
land. All allow the force and brilliancy of his genius, 
and the skill of his versification. All have at times felt 
a pensive chord in their bosoms responding to the sweep 
of his melancholy lyre. Yet what is the reason that he 
is not received with quite that measure of general en- 
thusiasm which would fairly correspond to his merit, and 
constitutes the choicest outward reward of every poet? 
It lies, we fear, somewhat deeper than the inelegant typog- 
raphy of his first volume, the indiscriminate profuseness 
with which he makes up his contents, the submissive- 
ness of his imitations, or his frank defiance of public 
opinion in matters of religion ; though even these ob- 
jectionable points have undoubtedly had their force with 
different classes of readers. 

But the most formidable obstacle to Mr. Percival's 
general popularity is the same, we apprehend, which 
has hitherto prevented the multiplication of editions of 
Southey and Wordsworth ; we mean, a disinclination in 

* Clio^ Nos. I. and II. By James G. Percival. Charleston and New- 
Haven. 



percival's poems. 285 

those authors to consult the precise intellectual tone and 
spirit of the average mass to whom their works are pre- 
sented. Theirs is the poetry of soliloquy. They write 
apart from and above the world. Their original object 
seems to be, the employment of their faculties and the 
gratification of their poetical propensities ; after which, 
the world is indulged with the favor of listening to the 
strains that have charmed and soothed their own soli- 
tude. A few congenial souls, indeed, will always be 
found to sympathize with such effusions, and none may 
be inclined to question the genius from which they pro- 
ceed ; and sometimes, as is frequently the case with the 
present author, the inclinations of the poet himself may 
coincide with the general taste by a happy chance, and 
thus produce compositions, which deserve immediate, ex- 
tensive, and permanent popularity. 

But we do not wonder that the success of poets of this 
stamp is frequently incomplete. We have little faith in 
this abstracted and unsocial sort of poetry. Science 
may be prosecuted very successfully, without the least 
reference to any general standard of taste and feeling 
abroad. Hardly so with literature. One cause, we pre- 
sume, of the literary excellence and lasting admiration 
attained by the works of the ancients, was the practice of 
reciting them before an audience. Being composed with 
this view, they must have possessed more life and en- 
ergy, more direct appeals to human sympathy, the power 
of being seized more vividly and readily by the average 
comprehension, and especially, to a greater degree, the 
happy art of awakening and playing with the attention so 
as never to push it to the borders of ennui, than if the 
author sat apart in his own closet, and sang for no other 



286 percival's poems. 

object than the gratification of his own ear, and in rever- 
ence for his own standards of criticism alone. Thus, 
might it not have been because Homer charmed in per- 
son the ears of all Greece, that he has reached the hearts 
of all ages ? Herodotus read his Muses at the Olympic 
games. The masterpieces of the Augustan era were 
rehearsed in the court of the emperor. Boileau, Voltaire, 
Rousseau, Marmontel, produced most of their match- 
less compositions under the immediate expectation of 
reading them to coteries or individuals. We cannot but 
persuade ourselves that such a practice must be ex- 
tremely efficacious, in securing a more general reception 
and popularity for works written under their influence, 
than for those written without it, all other circumstances 
being equal. The genius of a writer may be overwhelm- 
ing ; his learning prodigious ; his ear attuned to the 
finest influences ; his taste fastidiously pure ; and his 
glances " from earth to heaven " as bright and as quick 
as inspiration can make them ; — yet if he does not often 
glance too " from heaven to earth " ; if he does not study 
the common susceptibilities of the mass of his readers, 
and industriously tune the key-string of his own soul, till 
it vibrates nearly in unison with the compounded note 
sent up from the general breathing of human nature, he 
may lay his account, and perchance find his consolation, 
in being the poet of the few rather than of the many. 
To the cause thus imperfectly set forth, we are inclined 
to ascribe the limited circulation of Mr. Percival's Clio, 
which certainly contains some of the best poetry that has 
yet been sung by " degenerate Americans." 

It may be asked, Would you have poetry written en- 
tirely in the spirit of vers de societS ? Shall the poet slav- 



percival's poems. 287 

ishly abandon himself to the tastes and ideas of others ? 
Shall he not even aim at elevating the general standard 
as nearly as possible to ideal excellence ? Shall he refuse 
to draw his chief resources from the workings of his own 
soul, thus imparting to his productions a peculiarity, a 
characteristic individuality, which shall touch some of 
the finest springs of curiosity and interest in his readers? 
Shall his profession be that of a dancer, in which every 
step and posture which is taken is calculated for show 
and effect ? No, certainly : that were to rush into the 
opposite extreme. It is the fault which places the poetry 
of Moore so many degrees below the point of perfection. 
Scott might probably have failed in the same quarter, 
and Byron in the opposite, the quartier solitaire^ had not 
a certain native tact or address, resembling what in 
common life is called a knowledge of the world, taught 
them to resist their respective constitutional tendencies, 
and hit the true point of nature and popularity. Our 
ideas may be a little further illustrated by instancing the 
French and German schools of poetry, which severally 
verge towards the extremes we allude to. Shakespeare, 
whose single name may be cited in company with 
schools of literature, will quickly occur to every reader, 
as maintaining the desirable mean, in perfection. This is 
the true taste. While the bard is duly independent of 
extraneous influences, and pours into his strain all his 
own native fire and force, we would have him at the 
same time aware that there is an ear of scrutinizing and 
impatient taste abroad which is listening to him, — an 
ear which will certainly be dissatisfied if he wastes his 
music on preludes, and voluntaries, and symphonies of 
his own wayward devising, and confines not himself 



288 percival's poems. 

within some modulated movement, to which the feelings 
of all his readers shall beat time, like the heads in the 
platea of an Italian opera-house. 

The Last Minstrel was not in our opinion the worse 
bard, because, 

" Gazing timid on the crowd, 
He seemed to seek in every eye 
If they approved his minstrelsy." 

Still, the poets of the soliloquist school may possibly 
complain that we do not faithfully represent their case. 
They may disclaim the disinclination which we charge 
upon them to consult and to hit that happy medium of 
taste and propriety which awakens the interest, fastens 
the attention, and secures an eager perusal from the 
reading world. They may appeal to their love of ap- 
plause and to their vanity, as being quite equal to what 
is felt by more popular poets. They may contend that 
their mortification at ill-success, and their restlessness 
under criticism, are as acute and troublesome as those 
writers can possibly endure who pen every line with the 
image of a staring public directly before their eyes. 
Very true. But is not this mortification and restlessness 
produced by the circumstance that the world and the 
critics refuse to come up to your standard, and not that 
you have failed in attaining to theirs ? Is there not a 
kind of feeling of insulted graciousness, of repulsed con- 
descension, which you experience, rather than of hum- 
bling acquiescence, at finding that what has pleased and 
delighted yourselves in the composition, and been per- 
mitted to go abroad in public, has failed to please and 
delight everybody in the perusal ? And when you ap- 
peal, as Mr. Southey and others sometimes do, to pos- 



percital's poems. 289 

terity, say fairly whether you would not wince a little, 
if you could learn that posterity also will neglect you ; 
and whether you would not then apjDcal to a more 
remote posterity still, for your reward, and so on, till 
posterity and poetry shall be no more. 

If, after all, the recluse fraternity should strenuously 
deny the truth of our position; if they insist that they 
are as anxious as others to seize upon that mysterious 
medium of style, sentiment, spirit, and expression, which 
shall instinctively correspond to the tastes of the wide 
world of readers, and that they are willing to make every 
sacrifice to attain this end; — then they do but force a 
more disagreeable alternative upon their good-natured 
critics, who are endeavoring to account for the circum- 
scribed popularity which awaits their excellent produc- 
tions. Must we not reluctantly ascribe to them an in- 
aptitude or inability to infuse into their writings a tone 
precisely harmonizing with the natural inclinations and 
principles of taste implanted in the general mind ? Cer- 
tain early intellectual tendencies, voracious and undis- 
criminating habits of reading, seclusion from varied inter- 
course, or a partial feebleness or obliquity in the power 
of observation, may have prevented them from discern- 
ing, either in their own minds or those of others, the ex- 
act limit where delight ends and weariness begins, in the 
perusal of works of the imagination. Or Nature, in 
bestowing on them nearly all her rarest and most pre- 
cious gifts, may have envied them the last, and so with- 
held that delicate tact, which would have enabled them 
so to employ their talents as invariably to produce fas- 
cinating results. Hence, in perusing the writers whom 
we are attempting to characterize, we are liable to be 

25 



290 percival's poems. 

annoyed by a disproportionate stress laid upon certain 
ideas and sentiments ; or, a strain of thought is dwelt 
upon too long, — longer than we are willing to follow it 
out; or our minds become cloyed by an unsparing pro- 
fusion of beautiful images and poetical luxuries ; or they 
are often strained and confused by the writer's breaking 
off from some leading track of thought to run into by- 
paths and labyrinths, thus holding the faculties in a 
painful suspense, until we are again brought back to the 
onward path. There is too little attention paid to those 
graceful transitions and natural juxtapositions of the 
thoughts, which carry the reader forward imperceptibly, 
and enable him to follow the poet in his highest flights 
without a wearied effort. A heavy, indescribable weight 
will sometimes come over the eyelids, which are all the 
while dazzled with beauties, and offended with but few 
faults. Our minds are constantly rousing themselves 
up to the task of pursuing pleasure ; and the incipient 
nod is now and then only checked by our starting and 
exclaiming. How beautiful ! 

Whoever has attempted a fair sit-down to any of Mr. 
Percival's volumes must, we are confident, recognize 
most, if not all, of the peculiarities above specified, and 
ascribe to their influence the frequency with which he 
has laid aside the book, and achieved a complete peru- 
sal only by repeated assaults. 

Yet we will venture to say, (for here closes the unwill- 
ing and unenviable portion of our task,) that he who has 
examined to any considerable extent the poetry of our 
author must have received an ample reward, and found 
abundant and splendid exceptions and balances to the 
defects above enumerated. There certainly reigns in 



percival's poems. 201 

many parts of it the true ethereal spirit. The vein is 
often as rich as any we have ever known. The pieces 
are not few in which the soul of the author, rising as he 
proceeds, involves itself and the reader in a cloud of de- 
licious enchantment. He possesses the rare and divine 
art of imparting to language those mysterious and un- 
earthly influences which come to us from the strings of 
an ^olian harp. Without employing our senses as 
instruments, he can yet diffuse through our frames 
something like the result of all the sweetest sensations. 
Other authors often obtain admiration and fame from 
the excellence and beauty of separate ideas and senti- 
ments, and the skill with which they arrange them. 
These gifts are enough to make the fine writer ; they 
may produce the deepest immediate impressions. But 
to these Mr. Percival adds the power of exciting in the 
mind a pervading and continuing charm ; an aggregate 
effect, separate from the original one, analogous to a 
secondary rainbow. As you wander through the garden 
of his poetry, you enjoy something more than the pleas- 
ure of gazing on individual specimens, or inhaling their 
successive sweets, or surveying gay beds and fairly or- 
dered parterres; for the air itself is occupied with a 
spirit of mingled fragrance. As mere music often speaks 
a sort of language, so our author's language breathes a 
sort of music. We are convinced that it is true poetry, 
since in reading it we have had exactly the same feeling 
as in surveying admired objects in the sister arts of 
painting and sculpture. 

To descend, however, to praises a little more particu- 
lar and discriminating, the author's wide command of 
the English language deserves honorable notice. His 



292 percival's poems. 

rhymes are unhackneyed, yet always very natural. He 
has scarcely a trick of the mere versifier. We meet with 
few inversions of the common order of syntax. He has 
drunk deeply of the best undefiled springs. 

We are next pleased with his intimate familiarity with 
classical literature. It is evidently of a kind not bor- 
rowed from Lempritre. It generally appears in inci- 
dental allusions, which are rather forced upon him from 
a well-stored memory, than sought after for the purpose 
of display. It is doubly gratifying to meet with this 
accomplijrhment in our author; both as it furnishes a 
proof that the race of ripe classical scholars is flourishing 
among us, and also that the stock of classical images 
and ornaments is far from being exhausted. We are 
persuaded, moreover, that Mr. Percival has caught, from 
the study of Greek models, a certain Attic purity and 
severity of style, conspicuous in some of his best- 
wrought pieces. 

Besides this quality, we also observe, in every part of 
these volumes, proofs of very extensive and profound 
general knowledge. There is an almost encyclopedic 
familiarity with many departments of modern science. 
It is this ample store of images and illustrations, joined 
with his happy mastery of them, which gives us confi- 
dence in the ultimate splendid success of Mr. Percival's 
authorship. He is not to be named with those poets 
w^ho set up with a small stock of ideas and a pretty 
talent, and soon write themselves out. We regard his 
powers and resources as inexhaustible, and if his spirit 
be elastic enough to try them all successively, conde- 
scending at the same time to feel and be guided by the 
pulse of public taste, (we do not mean merely the public 



percival's poems. 203 

of to-day,) he will acquire for the literature of his coun- 
try and for himself an enviable renown. 

Another agreeable peculiarity in these pages is the fe- 
licitous art of weaving into the texture of a composition 
the names of common and vulgar objects, which a poet 
of ordinary powers would despair of introducing with 
success. Mr. Percival overcomes in a moment the repul- 
sive or unpoetical associations attached to such words, 
and invests them with an unwonted dignity and purity. 

The scenery of our country, too, has to thank him for 
consecrating some of its objects in his verse. The fol- 
lowing address has scarcely a fault that we can discern. 
It may possibly be thought that the picture is not suffi- 
ciently individual, and that when travelling about with 
it in your memory, you shall not recognize by it the 
Seneca Lake distinct from any other fine sheet of water. 
But this is a precarious objection. The author may not 
have meant it for a picture of that particular lake, but 
for a record of his feelings while accidentally gazing, at 
different hours, on one of the most beautiful of natural 
objects. But whatever may be the truth of this objec- 
tion, surely every line of the piece presents a distinct 
image of beauty, and is in perfect keeping with the 
spirit of the whole, which was caught from the softest 
breathing of nature. But we are affronting our readers 
thus to enact so long the part of a Cicerone. 

''TO SENECA LAKE. 

" On thy fair bosom, silver lake ! 
The wild swan spreads his snowy sail, 
And round his breast the ripples break, 
As down he bears before the gale. 
25=^ 



294 percival's poems. 

" On thy fair bosom, waveless stream ! 
The dipping paddle echoes far, 
And flashes in the moonlight gleam, 
And bright reflects the polar star. 

" The waves along thy pebbly shore, 
As blows the north-wind, heave their foam, 
And curl around the dashing oar, 
As late the boatman hies him home. 

" How sweet, at set of sun, to view 
Thy golden mirror spreading wide, 



And see the mist of mantlino^ blue 



Float round the distant mountain-side I 

" At midnight hour, as shines the moon, 
A sheet of silver spreads below, 
And swift she cuts, at highest noon, 
Light clouds, like wreaths of purest snow. 

" On thy fair bosom, silver lake ! 
O could I ever sweep the oar, 
When early birds at morning wake, 
And evening tells us toil is o'er ! " 

This extract reminds us that it is now time to intro- 
duce others from the two small volumes before us, which 
we shall do partly for the sake of exemplifying and 
defending the criticisms already advanced, and partly to 
adorn our own pages. 

In the following crowded, classical, and animated pic- 
ture, the occasional resemblance to Lord Byron ought 
not to be called an imitation so much as a successful 
attempt at rivalry : — 



percival's poems. 295 



♦'LIBERTY TO ATHENS. ODE. 



" The flag of freedom floats once more 

Around the lofty Parthenon ; 
It waves, as waved the palm of yore, 

In days departed long and gone ; 
As bright a glory, from the skies, 

Pours down its light around those towers, 
And once again the Greeks arise, 

As in their country's noblest hours ; 
Their swords are girt in virtue's cause, 

Minerva's sacred hill is free ; — 
O may she keep her equal laws. 

While man shall live, and time shall be ! 

" The pride of all her shrines went down ; 

The Goth, the Frank, the Turk, had reft 
The laurel from her civic crown ; 

Her helm by many a sword was cleft ; 
She lay among her ruins low ; 

Where grew the palm, the cypress rose, 
And, crushed and bruised by many a blow, 

She cowered beneath her savage foes ; 
But now again she springs from earth. 

Her loud, awakening trumpet speaks ; 
She rises in a brighter birth. 

And sounds redemption to the Greeks. 

" It is the classic jubilee, — 

Their servile years have rolled away ; 
The clouds that hovered o'er them flee. 

They hail the dawn of freedom's day j 
From heaven the golden light descends. 

The times of old are on the wing, 



296 percival's poems. 

And glory there her pinion bends, 
And beauty wakes a fairer spring ; 

The hills of Greece, her rocks, her waves, 
Are all in triumph's pomp arrayed ; 

A light that points their tyrants' graves 
Plays round each bold Athenian's blade. 

*' The Parthenon, the sacred shrine, 

Where wisdom held her pure abode : 
The hill of Mars, where light divine 

Proclaimed the true, but unknown God ; 
Where justice held unyielding sway. 

And trampled all corruption down, 
And onward took her lofty way 

To reach at truth's unfading crown ; 
The rock, where liberty was full. 

Where eloquence her torrents rolled, 
And loud, against the despot's rule, 

A knell the patriot's fury tolled : 
The stage, whereon the drama spake. 

In tones that seemed the words of Heaven, 
Which made the wretch in terror shake. 

As by avenging furies driven : 
The groves and gardens, where the fire 

Of wisdom, as a fountain, burned. 
And every eye, that dared aspire 

To truth, has long in worship turned ; 
The halls and porticos, where trod 

The moral sage, severe, unstained. 
And where the intellectual god 

In all the light of science reigned : 
The schools, where rose in symmetry 

The simple, but majestic pile, 



percival's poems. 297 

Where marble threw its roughness by, 

To glow, to frown, to weep, to smile, 
Where colors made the canvas live. 

Where music rolled her flood along. 
And all the charms that art can give 

Were blent with beauty, love, and song : 
The port, from whose capacious womb •- 

Her navies took their conquering road, 
The heralds of an awful doom 

To all who would not kiss her rod ; — 
On these a dawn of glory springs. 

These trophies of her brightest fame ; 
Away the long-chained city flings 

Her weeds, her shackles, and her shame ; 
Again her ancient souls awake, 

Harmodius bares anew his sword ; 
Her sons in wrath their fetters break, 

And freedom is their only lord." 



" CONSUMPTION. 

" There is a sweetness in woman's decay, 
When the light of beauty is fading away. 
When the bright enchantment of youth is gone, 
And the tint that glowed, and the eye that shone 
And darted around its glance of power. 
And the lip that vied with the sweetest flower 
That ever in Ptestum's * garden blew, 
Or ever was steeped in fragrant dew, — 
When all that was bright and fair is fled. 
But the loveliness lino:erino; round the dead. 



* Biferique rosaria Psesti. — Virg. 



298 pekcival's poems. 

" O there is a sweetness in beauty's close, 
Like the the perfume scenting the withered rose ; 
For a nameless charm around her plays, 
And her eyes are kindled with hallowed rays, 
And a veil of spotless purity 
Has mantled her cheek with its heavenly dye, 
Like a cloud whereon the queen of night 
Has poyred her softest tint of light ; 
And there is a blending of white and blue, 
Where the purple blood is melting through 
The snow of her pale and tender cheek ; 
And there are tones, that sweetly speak 
Of a spirit, who longs for a purer day. 
And is ready to wing her flight away. 

" In the flush of youth and the spring of feeling. 
When life, like a sunny stream, is stealing 
Its silent steps through a flowery path, 
And all the endearments that pleasure hath 
Are poured from her full, o'erflowing horn. 
When the rose of enjoyment conceals no thorn. 
In her lightness of heart, to the cheery song 
The maiden may trip in the dance along, 
And think of the passing moment, that lies. 
Like a fairy dream, in her dazzled eyes. 
And yield to the present, that charms around 
With all that is lovely in sight and sound. 
Where a thousand pleasing phantoms flit. 
With the voice of mirth, and the burst of wit, 
And the music that steals to the bosom's core. 
And the heart in its fulness flowing o'er 
With a few big drops, tl\at are soon repressed. 
For short is the stay of grief in her breast : 
In this enlivened and gladsome hour 



percival's poems. 

The spirit may burn with a brighter power ; 

But dearer the calm and quiet day, 

When the heaven-sick soul is stealing away. 

" And when her sun is low decHning, 
And life wears out with no repining, 
And the whisper that tells of early death 
Is soft as the west-wind's balmy breath, 
When it comes at the hour of still repose, 
To sleep in the breast of the wooing rose ; 
And the Up, that swelled with a living glow, 
Is pale as a curl of new-fallen snow ; 
And her cheek, like the Parian stone, is fair. 
But the hectic spot that flushes there, 
When the tide of life, from its secret dwelling, 
In a sudden gush, is deeply swelling, 
And giving a tinge to her icy lips 
Like the crimson rose's brightest tips. 
As richly red, and as transient too, 
As the clouds in autumn's sky of blue. 
That seem like a host of glory met 
To honor the sun at his golden set : 
O then, when the spirit is taking wing. 
How fondly her thoughts to her dear one cling, 
As if she would blend her soul with his 
In a deep and long imprinted kiss ! 
So, fondly the panting camel flies. 
Where the glassy vapor cheats his eyes. 
And the dove from the falcon seeks her nest. 
And the infant shrinks to its mother's breast. 
And though her dying voice be mute, 
Or faint as the tones of an unstrung lute, 
And though the glow from her cheek be fled, 
And her pale Hps cold as the marble dead. 



299 



PERCIVAL S POEMS. 

Her eye still beams unwonted fires 
With a woman's love and a saint's desires, 
And her last fond, lingering look is given 
To the love she leaves, and then to heaven, 
As if she would bear that love away 
To a purer world and a brighter day." 

In the lines to the Houstonia Cerulea, and the address 
to Seneca Lake, our author comes into competition with 
Mr. Bryant, as a fine observer of nature, a pensive mor- 
alist, and a true poet. We recognize in the former a 
spirit kindred to that which dictated the Lines to a Wa- 
terfowl. The admirers of Mr. Bryant must admit that 
Percival's lines on Self-Devotion to Solitary Studies, and 
on the Prevalence of Poetry, are not unworthy of the 
genius that produced Thanatopsis, having, we think, no 
greater resemblance to Akenside than that exquisite and 
much quoted production has to the Grave of Blair. 

The second number of Clio is not equal to the first. 
We can only take from it The Coral Grove, highly origi- 
nal and imaginative. 

" THE CORAL GROVE. 

" Deep in the wave is a Coral Grove, 
Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove, 
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue. 
That never are wet with falling dew. 
But in bright and changeful beauty shine, 
Far down in the green and glassy brine. 
The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift, 

And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow ; 
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift 

Their bousjhs where the tides and billows flow ; 



percival's poems. 301 

The water is calm and still below, 

For the winds and waves are absent there, 
And the sands are bright as the stars, that glow 

In the motionless fields of upper air : 
There, with its waving blade of green. 

The sea-flag streams through the silent water, 
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen 

To blush, like a banner bathed in slaughter : 
There, with a light and easy motion. 

The fan-coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea ; 
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean 

Are bending, like corn on the upland lea : 
And life, in rare and beautiful forms. 

Is sporting amid those bowers of stone. 
And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms 

Has made the top of the wave his own : 
And when the ship from his fury flies. 

Where the myriad voices of ocean roar, 
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies, 

And demons are waiting the wreck on shore, — 
Then far below, in the peaceful sea, 

The purple mullet and gold-fish rove, 
Where the waters murmur tranquilly. 

Through the bending twigs of the coral grove." 

Could the published poetry of Mr. Percival be reduced 
to a single volume of moderate size, and printed in a 
style worthy of the contents, it would, we have thought, 
be an acceptable present to the world, honorable to our 
country, and valued by posterity. But already, we un- 
derstand, another work is announced from the same 
prolific pen ; and as long as Mr. Percival will continue to 
write, our experience of the past raises so high our hopes 
of the future, that we do not ask him at present to divert 

26 



302 tercival's poems. 

his energies from composition to revision and reduction. 
By and by, in the calm and leisure of his days, he will, 
we presume, take pleasure in revising his works sternly 
and impartially, and fastidiously select from them fewer 
perhaps than the world would do, on which to fix the 
seal of immortality. In the mean time, may we entreat 
him to let no false sense of independence, or inordinate 
admiration of Lord Byron, tempt him any more to flout 
the Cross, or to throw doubts on the^soul's immortality. 
Religion may not be wanted by so ethereal a race as the 
poets. But reviewers and other common men very much 
need it in the course of their numerous temptations. 
What would become of the wretched herd of authors, if 
reviewers were freed from some higher motives and re- 
straints than are to be found among the miserable ele- 
ments of this world ? Let poets be careful, then, how, by 
the acuteness and philosophy lent them in some inspired 
moment of disappointment and hypochondriasis, they 
overthrow the labors of the Lardners and Paleys, falsify 
the demonstrations of the metaphysicians, and disappoint 
the dearest and most universal sentiment of mankind I 

He must not complain of the severity of these sar- 
casms, who, besides throwing suspicion on the beautiful 
enthusiasm for virtue, the perfect purity of sentiment, and 
even the occasional eulogiums on religion which adorn 
the other portions of his works, has deliberately, in two 
or three disloyal stanzas, cut more than one humble be- 
liever to the heart. 

N. A. Review, 1823. 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 



A RECENT visit to the mansion of I. K. TefFt, Esq., of 
Savannah, furnished me with an unaccustomed enter- 
tainment, in describing which, I may hope to reproduce 
it, in a faint degree, for others. This gentleman has 
devoted a portion of his leisure for several years to the 
collection of Autographs, or specimens of original hand- 
writing by eminent persons of various ages and coun- 
tries. It it were not otherwise known that his literary 
tastes and habits had peculiarly fitted him for such an 
occupation, the fact would be sufficiently evident from 
the actual fruits of his researches. His compilation of 
manuscripts, by different writers, nearly all of whom 
have been persons, in one way or another, of consider- 
able distinction, amounts to about five thousand arti- 
cles.* They thus constitute a very rare curiosity, or 
rather assemblage of curiosities, which few can even 
partially inspect without strong feelings of surprise and 
gratification. They present, too, a striking testimony of 
the extraordinary results that may be achieved by di- 

^ This number has probably been much more than trebled since the first 
publication of the essay. 



304 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

recting one's attentiou and energies to a particular pur- 
suit, whatever it may be. 

Nor can such a collection be simply regarded as a 
curiosity. It deserves, in many respects, the higher 
praise of usefulness. The inquiries and exertions neces- 
sary to its formation must often bring to light some 
valuable literary or historical document. It is not mere 
signatures, or scraps of handwriting, that Mr. Tefft has 
been so sedulously collecting. He has intended that 
each specimen should consist, if possible, of an interest- 
ing letter, or some important instrument. Must it not 
be readily allowed, that a series of only single epistles 
from all the eminent men who were active, both in a 
civil and military capacity, throughout our Revolution- 
ary war, would of itself constitute an interesting volume, 
and throw a desirable light on the history of that pe- 
riod ? Yet such a series might be culled with great ease 
from the collection we are now contemplating. 

Very few large autographic collections are known to 
exist. They are among the last intellectual luxuries 
grafted on a high growth of refinement and civilization. 
Here and there some peculiar taste or bias determines 
an individual to the pursuit, and he experiences the in- 
nocent delight of beholding his treasures rapidly in- 
cease, while his friends and acquaintances, in the mean 
time, are permitted to enjoy many an hour of deep in- 
terest and pleasure in reviewing the results of his quiet 
yet enthusiastic labors. In our own country, besides 
Mr. Tefft, there are but two very extensive collectors, the 
Rev. Dr. Sprague of Albany, and Robert Gilmor, Esq. 
of Baltimore. Dr. Sprague's collection has attained 
considerable celebrity, and amounts to more than twen- 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGllAPHS. 305 

ty thousand articles. Mr. Gilmor's, also, is particularly 
valuable ; and a printed list of the most important speci- 
mens has been circulated by him for the convenience of 
himself and his friends. His American is separated from 
his Foreign collection, and is thus classed: Civil and 
military officers before the Kevolution,— military offi- 
cers of the Revolutionary war,— military officers since 
the Revolution, — naval officers,— signers of the Decla- 
ration of Independence, — worthies of the Revolution,— 
signers of the Constitution of the United States, — presi- 
dents and vice-presidents, — secretaries of state, — secre- 
taries of the treasury, — secretaries of war, — secretaries 
of the navy, — attorneys-general, — post-office depart- 
ment, — governors of States and Territories, — members 
of Congress, — diplomatic, — law, — divinity, — medi- 
cine, — literary, — scientific, — artists, — miscellaneous, 
which includes all that cannot properly be placed under 
one of the other heads. The foreign autographs in the 
same collection are subjected to a similar arrangement. 
The accomplished Grimke, during the last few years of 
his life, paid much attention to this subject, and has left 
a considerable collection of autographs, which, had he 
been longer spared, would undoubtedly have soon been 
greatly enlarged. Among the most distinguished col- 
lectors abroad are Rev. Dr. Raffles of Liverpool, the 
well-known author of the " Life of Spenser," and Rev. 
Mr. Bolton of Henley-upon-Thames. It would thus 
appear that clergymen have a particular partiality for 
this pursuit, though by what affinity I presume not to 
determine. 

Few autographs, comparatively, have reached our 
country from the continent of Europe, nor is Mr. Tefi't 



26* 



306 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

acquainted with any collector in that part of the world. 
That there must be such, however, is highly probable, 
particularly in France, Germany, Holland, and Italy. 
The English Encyclopaedias contain no information on 
the subject, though it would seem to deserve a place in 
their miscellaneous records. The Encyclopsedia Ameri- 
cana, which is partly a translation from the German, 
dismisses the article with the tantalizing remark, that 
" some collections of autographs of famous men are very 
interesting." I should apprehend that there is a suffi- 
cient number of autograph-collectors in the world to jus- 
tify and support an annual publication on the subject. 
Such a work would be invaluable to the fraternity. It 
should contain catalogues of all existing collections. It 
should give an account of new and interesting discov- 
eries. It should present fac-similes of the rarest and most 
valuable subjects. By this means, every collector might 
compare his own deficiencies with the redundancies of 
others, and an equilibrium be everywhere maintained 
at much less trouble and expense than are incurred at 
present. 

Mr. Tefft has succeeded in forming his large compila- 
tion without incurring any direct expense. Through 
the liberality of many persons in our country who have 
held choice autographs in their possession, he has always 
on hand duplicates of considerable worth, by the ex- 
change of which with persons, either at home or abroad, 
he has been enabled to confer so peculiar a value and 
extent on his collection. Having amassed five thousand 
specimens, it may be supposed that he has nearly ex- 
hausted the range of distinguished names; and accord- 
ingly, when some obliging friend from a distance sends 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 307 

him a parcel, he finds, on looking it over, that it scarcely 
contributes a single new name to his collection, though 
the whole may be otherwise valuable and interesting. 
Some of his most curious specimens he has received 
gratuitously from friends in Great Britain, although, as 
might be expected in a very artificial state of society, 
they would often command considerable prices in that 
country. The poet Campbell raised forty-five guineas 
for the Poles by autographs ; and visiting a lady who 
had notes from distinguished people on her table, he 
advised her to conceal them, or they would be stolen. 
Brougham's autograph was valued at five guineas. Dis- 
tant, undoubtedly, is the day when the casual holder of 
a few bits of paper in America will think of extorting a 
compensation from the gentle and devoted collector of 
autographs. 

One of the most interesting features of this occupation 
consists in the personal correspondence between the 
autograph-collector and individuals who are in posses- 
sion of the desired articles. Between the collectors 
themselves not only an acquaintance is formed, but often 
a warm and substantial friendship. If one could imagine 
the mutual regard entertained between two persons who 
are in the habit of interchanging a few Birds of Para- 
dise, or a real Phoenix, or a consignment of the most 
delicious tropical fruits, or a goodly specimen of Georgia 
gold, one might understand the emotion felt at the re- 
ception of a long-sought-for scrap by one of the signers 
of the Declaration, or perchance the veritable signature 
of some foreign name, 

"Wherewith all Europe rings from side to side." 
Again, nothing can exceed the obliging and cour- 



308 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

teous language and actions of several distinguished men 
who have been applied to for autographs within their 
control. My Savannah friend has rarely, if ever, had 
the misfortune to be met with neglect in answer to 
applications of this kind. His letters from such men 
as ex-Presidents Madison and Adams (both father and 
son), Professor Silliman, General Lafayette, Washington 
Irving, Duponceau, Joseph Buonaparte, Dr. Mitchell, 
Mr. Grimke, Basil Hall, Dr. Raffles, and many others, 
exhibit their private characters in a truly amiable light. 
When thus not merely the nature of this occupation, but 
its external circumstances, are of so agreeable a descrip- 
tion, we cannot wonder at the zeal with which it is 
pursued. 

The science of the autograph-collector is not without 
its higher and peculiar mysteries. By much experience 
and exercise, he acquires a skilful discernment which 
belongs not to common eyes. He will tell you of corre- 
spondences between the handwriting and the mental 
disposition of individuals, about which he is rarely, if 
ever, mistaken. He will speak of immediately discern- 
ing, amidst a hundred new specimens, and before in- 
specting the signatures, those which have been written 
by the most eminent persons. And why should it not be 
so ? Perhaps it will be found more philosophical to credit 
such pretensions, than to ridicule or distrust them. For 
if we often judge of a character, with no little precision, 
by a single tone of the voice, by a single motion of the 
body, by an instantaneous glance at the physiognomy ; 
and if, which is yet more to the point, a nation has its 
peculiar style of writing, so that a French manuscript is 
as easily discernible from an English one as are the re- 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 309 

spective dialects of the two countries ; if the manuscripts 
of the same nation at different eras are also perceptibly 
different, so that a writing of the sixteenth century is no 
more like one of the eighteenth than are the dresses of 
those two periods like each other; if the chirographics 
of the two sexes are almost always immediately distin- 
guishable, so that a brother and sister, educated under 
the same circumstances, and taught by the same writ- 
ing-master, shall yet unavoidably reveal their respective 
styles ; and if, lastly, different classes of persons shall 
be knowm by their different handwritings, so that a mere 
child could pronounce which is the mercantile clerk's, 
which the lawyer's, and which the leisurely gentleman's, 
— let us beware how we rashly discredit the experienced 
inspector of autographs, who deduces from the signature 
of an individual the qualities of his mind. 

The occupation we are describing (I find it easier to 
speak in the plural) is sometimes enlivened by moving 
adventures, hair-breadth rescues, and joy-inspiring dis- 
coveries, which the uninitiated world knows nothing of; 
and sometimes it is damped by the most cruel disap- 
pointments. A manuscript is often sought for with anx- 
ious diligence for years; and when perhaps all hope is 
abandoned, and something like acquiescence or resigna- 
tion is beginning to compose the spirits of the baffled 
inquirer, not only the desired signature, but (precious and 
ample reward for all past labors and regrets!) a whole 
letter by the same hand, is sent in from some unexpected 
quarter. Mr. Tefft was long in pursuit of an autograph 
of Kosciusko. He received from a Northern friend a 
scrap of paper containing the simple signature of that 
warrior's name, with an expression of regret that nothing 



310 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

more under his hand could be found. Some time after- 
wards, he received from another friend an entire letter of 
Kosciusko, with the exception of the signature. On 
comparing the two papers, with trembling anxiety, it 
was found that they both originally constituted one and 
the same letter. Sometimes an ignorant descendant of 
renowned ancestors will be unwilling to part with any of 
their manuscripts, through an inability to comprehend 
the collector's object ; sometimes a heaping trunk is com- 
mitted by a vandal hand to the flames, or, if rescued, its 
contents are perhaps found to be ruined by the moulds 
and damps of age. 

But we have perhaps been too long detained from ex- 
amining the valuable collection which has occasioned 
these preliminary remarks. We find the manuscripts in 
excellent preservation, being arranged and classed in six 
volumes, after the manner of Mr. Gilmor's collection, 
already described. There is, besides, a box of miscella- 
neous autographs. Let us first open this. A very cour- 
teous letter from Captain Hall lies on the top, enclosing 
an engraved fac-simile of the letter written to him by 
Sir Walter Scott when detained at Portsmouth by the 
wind in 1831, and giving some account of Sir Walter's 
own favorite production, " The Antiquary." This letter 
has been already published in several American news- 
papers, and we will dismiss it by simply remarking that 
Sir Walter's first sentence has been erroneously deci- 
phered and printed, as we ourselves had the pleasure of 
discovering. He does not say, " My dear Captain Hall, as 
the wind seems determinately inflexible," but he says, far 
more clearly and forcibly, " as the wind seems deter- 
minedly inflexible." 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 311 

Next is an invaluable document. It is a communica-. 
tion from the son of Dr. Currie of Liverpool, the biogra- 
pher of Burns, covering a long and interesting letter from 
that immortal poet to the celebrated Dugald Stewart. It 
is written in a large, bold, perpendicular, and slightly an- 
gular hand, not unworthy the author of " Tam o' Shanter." 

A distinguished professor of a Northern institution, in 
a very kind letter, thus writes : " We have in Yale Col- 
lege a very remarkable autograph, or rather auto-deline- 
ation : it is a sketch of himself with a pen, made by 
Major Andre, a few hours before his execution. There is 
also a lock of his hair, taken from his grave. In the 
sketch, he is represented as sitting at a table ; the por- 
trait is full length, and about the size of the palm of 
your hand. It came into the possession of Lieutenant 
Nathan Beers of the Connecticut Line, then on duty, and 
who stood near to Andre, as a member of the guard, at 
the moment of execution. Lieutenant Beers is my near 
neighbor, and, at eighty years of age, enjoys his faculties 
perfectly, except hearing. Colonel Talmadge, a very 
gallant and distinguished cavalry officer, was charged 
with the immediate custody of Andre's person, and upon 
his arm the unfortunate man was leaning, on his way to 
execution, when he first saw the preparation for what 
he deemed a dishonorable death. He recoiled a mo- 
ment at the sight, and asked with emotion if he must 
die in that manner. Colonel Talmadge is still living, 
and cannot even now relate that tragedy without tears." 

As a happy pendant to the foregoing, we have next a 
letter from our Lafayette, dated in 1832, saying : — 

" With miicli pleasure I would gratify your autographic incli 
nations, but have for the present no European writings to offer, 



312 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

excepting a note from the King of the French, which I enclose. 

As for this letter of mine, which you are pleased to call for, I 

hope it will be placed in the American part of your collection. I 

beg you to remind me to my friends in Savannah, and to believe 

me most sincerely yours. 

" Lafayette." 

We soon take up a letter, apparently from a London 
merchant or banker, dated 6th April, 1676, to his friends 
in the country. It is curious by reason of mentioning 
that King Charles II. was then at New-Market, " and 
't is said," continues the letter, " his Majesty in Counsell 
did on Sunday was seavenight past order that the chim- 
ney money should be assigned for payment of the bank- 
ers." This chimney-money probably corresponded to 
the house-duty of modern times. It is sometimes called 
hearth-money by the historians. The same letter con- 
tains the following passing touch of private life: — 
" Matt. H. and little Kitt were both invited through 
Easter to Sir Wm. Bucknall. The hinmost was not 
there, but the foremost was, and questionless the orange 
was well squeezed." 

Another document is an order, dated in 1724, for the 
payment of a dividend on the South-Sea Stock, cele- 
brated in history as the cause of such widely extended 
ruin. 

There is also an original letter written by Miss Eliza- 
beth Scott to her father. The chief interest about it is, 
that Dr. Doddridge once cherished the hope and effort to 
marry Miss Scott, but without success. She was a lady 
of great talents and accomphshments, and the author of 
some poems. The letter before us is only remarkable 
for a deep tone of piety and filial affection. The writer 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 313 

seems to have been a great bodily sufferer. One little 
thing about the exterior of her letter bespeaks its femi- 
nine authorship, and carries us back, as by a magic power, 
through a hundred years. Some thirty or forty pin-holes 
are made in the wafer of the letter, the fair and worthy 
writer apparently not having a seal at hand. The privi- 
lege of seeing pin-holes, made in a wafer by the fingers 
of a lady to whom Dr. Doddridge was attached, is one 
of no small value. If she could have found it in her 
heart to favor the fond divine more indulgently, doubt- 
less she would have been able, instead of a pin, to have 
used a seal, with the device of a blazing heart, and the 
initials P. D. beneath it. As to the superscription, di- 
rected upside down, we know not what to say. 

Turning over a number of interesting articles, which 
we cannot possibly specify, we come to a manuscript 
sermon of Cotton Mather. It is written half unintelligi- 
bly, in the finest and closest hand, on three very small 
leaves, the latter part of it seeming to be only notes or 
hints for extemporaneous enlargement. The text con- 
sists of the words, " Blessed be God." An instance of 
Mather's bold and poetic imagination occurs near the 
middle of the discourse. Describing the life and charac- 
ter of the Apostle Paul, who had such valid reasons to 
bless God for his conversion, he says : " A vile sinner 
against God may become a high servant of God. As 
they said. Is Saul among the prophets ? thus they could 
say of another Saul, Is he among the Apostles ? A fierce 
persecutor of our Lord Jesus Christ may become a rare 
ambassador for him." At this point he inserts in the 
margin, as an after-thought, which he felt necessary to 

27 



314 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

crown his climax of antitheses, "and a firebrand of hell 
may become a bright star of heaven." 

As this autograph of Mather is among the oldest in 
the collection, I may here mention that the very oldest 
is dated in 1665, and that on one sheet of paper are fast- 
ened four small documents written in New England 
between the years 1665 and 1689. Thus the collection 
is not yet peculiarly rich in antiquities. 

We now turn over a considerable number of articles, 
consisting of letters, dinner-notes, orders, and signatures 
from the most conspicuous Americans of past and pres- 
ent times. However piquant it may be to the curious 
in such matters to inspect the hasty undress and confi- 
dential billets of living Presidents and Ex-Presidents, 
members of Cabinets and Congress, and various other 
eminent characters, the laws of decorum must not be 
violated by transcribing and blazoning them here. But 
see I we arrive at a mutilated letter from Benedict Ar- 
nold. It is written in a large, clear, bold, regular hand, 
and contains a complaint of his character having been 
cruelly and unjustly aspersed ; concluding thus : " I 
have the honor to be, with the greatest respect [here 
some one has written in pencil, a Traitor]^ Your Excel- 
lency's most obedient and very humble servant. B. 
Arnold." 

Soon following this is the rough draft of an animated 
Address to the young men of Boston, dated Philadelphia, 
1798, by the elder President Adams. It begins thus : 
" Gentlemen, it is impossible for you to enter your own 
Faneuil Hall, or to throw your eyes on the variegated 
mountains and elegant islands around you, without rec- 
ollecting the principles and actions of your fathers, and 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 315 

feeling what is due to their example." After alluding 
to the dangers of the country, he writes, " To arms, then, 
my young friends ; to arms ! " — and concludes in an 
equally characteristic strain. Some sheets after, we find 
a letter from the same pen, written from Philadelphia to 
Boston as early as 1776. It is addressed to a certain 
Miss Polly Palmer, in a style of playful gallantry. The 
whole of it is so interesting, that it shall be extracted 
here entire. 

"Philadelphia, July 5, 1776. 

"Miss Polly: — Your favor of June 15, 1776, was handed 
to me by the last post. I hold myself much obliged to you for 
your attention to me, at this distance from those scenes, in which, 
although I feel myself deeply interested, yet I can neither be an 
actor nor spectator. 

" You have given me (notwithstanding all your modest apolo- 
gies) with a great deal of real elegance and perspicuity, a minute 
and circumstantial narrative of the whole expedition to the lower 
harbor, against the men of war. It is lawful, you know, to flatter 
the ladies a little, at least if custom can make a thing lawful ; 
but, without availing myself in the least degree of this license, I 
can safely say, that, from your letter, and another from Miss 
Paine to her brother, I was enabled to form a more adequate 
idea of that whole transaction, than from all the other accounts 
of it, both in the newspapers and private letters which have come 
to my hands. 

" In times as turbulent as these, commend me to the ladies for 
historiographers ; the gentlemen are too much engaged in action, 
- — the ladies are cooler spectators. There is a lady at the foot 
of Pens-Hill, who obliges me from time to time with clearer and 
fuller intelhgence than I can get from a whole committee of gen- 
tlemen. 

" I was a little mortified at the unlucky calm which retarded 



316 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

the militia from Braintree, Weymouth, and Hingham. I wished 
that they might have had more than half the glory of the enter- 
prise ; however, it satisfies me to reflect, that it was not their 
fault, but the fault of the wind, they had not. 

" I will enclose to you a Declaration, in which all America 
is remarkably united. It completes a revolution, which makes 
as great a figure in the history of mankind as any that has pre- 
ceded it : — provided always that the ladies take care to record 
the circumstances of it, for, by the experience I have had of the 
other sex, they are either too lazy, or too active, to commemorate 
them. 

"A continuance of your correspondence, Miss Polly, would 
much oblige me. — Compliments to Papa and Mamma, and the 
whole family. — I begin now to flatter myself, however, that you 
are situated in the safest place upon the continent. 

" Howe's army and fleet are at Staten Island. But there is 
a very numerous army at New York and New Jersey, to oppose 
them. Like Noah's Dove, without its innocence, they can find 
no rest. 

" I am with much respect, esteem, and gratitude, your friend 
and humble servant, 

" John Adams." 

The autograph-inspector must not, however, flatter 
himself that he can always find a very interesting docu- 
ment, apart from the mere signature or handwriting of the 
eminent individual to whom it belonged. The every-day 
correspondence, even of heroes themselves, is not particu- 
larly heroic. You will turn over many a precious relic of 
the officers engaged in our Revolutionary war, and find 
perhaps nothing more important than an order upon a 
quartermaster-general, or the detail of accidents un- 
worthy of a permanent record. Yet sometimes a few 
hastily written lines will transport you in imagination to 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 317 

the heat and bustle of the contest ; as where Lord Stirling 
enjoins Colonel Dayton, " besides watching the motions 
of the enemy along the Sound, to get some certain intel- 
ligence from Staten Island and New York of their prepa- 
rations or intentions ; and I will be with you in the morn- 
ing, but say nothing of that " ; — or where Archibald Bul- 
lock, the first republican Governor of Georgia, begs Colo- 
nel M'Intosh, commander of the Continental Battalion, 
in a letter which is quoted by M'Call, the historian, im- 
mediately to withdraw a sentinel from his door; " since," 
he continues, " I act for a free people, in whom I have 
an entire confidence and dependence, and would wish 
upon all occasions to avoid ostentation " ; — or where 
Thomas Cushing of Boston, in 1773, invites Elbridge 
Gerry to a meeting of the Committee of Correspondence, 
to prepare for the possibility of approaching war ; and 
says in a postscript, " It is thought it will not be best to 
mention abroad the particular occasion of this meeting " ; 
— or when M' Henry writes to Governor Hawley, that 
he had sat up two nights to produce two numbers of 
some address to the people, and adds : " We go against 
Arnold, but let us not be too sanguine. He is covered 
by entrenchments. War is full of disappointments," 
&c. ; — or where Rawlins Lowndes writes to Governor 
Houston of Georgia, " I hope you will be able to keep 
ofT the enemy until succors arrive to your assistance. 
General Lincoln set off this morning, and the troops are 
on their march." 

It is curious, however, to observe the turn taken by the 
correspondence of the same class of men as soon as the 
great struggle for independence was over. They enter 
now upon the field of local or general politics ; or they 

27* 



318 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

look after their private affairs, which have evidently been 
deranged by their long devotion to public service ; or they 
order from an artist, an eagle, the badge of the Cincin- 
nati ; or they inquire into the value of grants of land 
voted them by legislatures ; or they solicit the office of 
sheriff'; or they take measures to establish academies, 
and improve society around them. 

We now open the box lettered Distinguished Foreign- 
ers. And first greets the eye a precious parcel contain- 
ing several autographs of Sir Walter Scott. We have 
this note to his favorite publisher and friend, James Bal- 
lantyne : " Dear James, You have had two blank days, 
I send you copy from fifty-two to sixty-four, thirteen 
pages." We have an entire and closely written leaf of 
the History of France in Tales of a Grandfather. We 
have a billet without direction, sent probably to some 
one waiting at the gate of Abbotsford, and couched in 
these terms : " Sir Walter is particularly engaged just 
now. Andrew Scott is welcome to look at the arms, 
and Sir Walter encloses a trifle to help out the harvest- 
wages." We have an order on a bookseller in this 
fashion : " Mr. Scott will be obliged to Mr. Laing to 
send him from his catalogue 

9373 Life of J. C. Pilkington, 
9378 Life of Letitia Pilkington." 
And lastly, we have the solitary signature, Walter Scott, 
which will no doubt be worth its full guinea before many 
years. One peculiarity distinguishes the manuscripts of 
this author from all others. It is that he never dots an i, 
or crosses a t, or employs punctuation of any kind, except, 
now and then, a solitary period. In this respect his writ- 
ing strongly resembles the inscriptions of the ancients. 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 319 

On comparing the sheet of copy which he furnished for 
the printer with the published History of France, I find 
a number of essential variations. The probability is, 
that James Ballantyne, who was an accomplished schol- 
ar, or perhaps the press-corrector, who, in Europe, is 
often possessed of no mean acquirements, treated Sir 
Walter's manuscripts pretty much after his own pleasure. 
The magic weaver had dismissed his fabric, wrought in- 
deed in the firmest texture and the most beautiful figures 
and colors. But the finisher went carefully over the 
whole, adjusted the irregular threads, removed the un- 
sightly knots, stretched out every part to an agreeable 
smoothness, and thus rendered the wonderful commodity 
more fit for the general market. 

Reluctantly laying aside these memorials of the Great 
Enchanter, we take up a very polite letter from Joseph 
Bonaparte, enclosing the autograph of his far more re- 
nowned brother. It is on the outside of a note ad- 
dressed by Napoleon to Joseph, when the latter was a 
member of the Council of Five Hundred. It is written 
on a thick, firm piece of paper, which has been clumsily 
and hastily sealed with red sealing-wax. The seal is in- 
scribed with the name of Bonaparte, in the French, not 
the Italian mode of spelling it; and bears the device of 
a female figure leaning on a lictor's axe and rods. The 
superscription is this : — 

" Concitoyen 
Joseph Buonoparte 
depute au conseil 
des 500 
Farisr 



320 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

Thus the autograph fixes its own date before 1800, 
the Council of Five Hundred having been dissolved on 
the 9th of November, 1799. In fact, it is not at all im- 
possible that this very envelope covered a note from 
Napoleon to his brother, penned during that agitating 
week which preceded the death-blow of his country's 
liberties. 

If ever handwriting was characteristic, this little su- 
perscription is decidedly so. Were a painter of genius 
employed to represent a field of battle by a few lines and 
dashes of a pen, he could not execute a closer resem- 
blance than this. It is difficult to inspect it without be- 
ing almost induced to stop one's ears. The z's and/s 
indeed, unlike those of Scott, are dotted ; but the dots 
look exactly like flying bombs. The i^'s are all duly 
crossed; but they are crossed as was the bridge of Lodi; 
and that imagination must be slow indeed, which does 
not perceive that the hand which produced even this 
little specimen was guided by a soul whose congenial 
elements were power, rapidity, confusion, victory. 

What next has found its way to this little world of 
Autographs ? 

Lafayette's toast : " The Holy Alliance of Nations in 
the cause of equal rights and universal freedom." Then 
follows the same in French, all in his own handwriting. 

Next is an order of Southey the poet, on a bookseller, 
for Aretino and Strabo. 

Next, a note from Wordsworth ; but who will credit its 
being entirely concerned with the letting of land, the lay- 
ing down of crops, and the productiveness of a certain 
blacksmith's shop ? 

There is a characteristic scrap from John Wesley, 



• A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 321 

though a few of the words are unintelligible. The read- 
able part of it is this : — 

" Within a few months I am brought much forward. A few 

more, and I shall be no more seen. May I 

"Your affectionate friend and brother, 

"J. Wesley." 

Two sonnets by Bowles, in his own handwriting, will 
gratify the lover of poetry, and remind him of the high 
testimony of Coleridge to the merits of that elegant 
writer. 

Next, a manuscript of two pages by William Cobbett, 
which appears to be a diatribe against the English 
government for its conduct towards America during the 
last war. 

Next, the beautiful lines of John Bowring, entitled, 
" Whither shall my spirit fly ? " written in his own hand, 
and marked by his own signature. 

Next, a note from Lady Byron to her bookseller, order- 
ing a number of theological works. 

Next, a letter from Adam Clarke, inviting a distin- 
guished clergyman of South Carolina, who was then in 
London, to visit him. 

Next, a long and interesting letter from Whitfield on 
the subject of his school for orphans. 

Dr. Franklin, in a letter lying near, says of Mr. Whit- 
field himself: " I knew him intimately upwards of thirty 
years. His integrity, disinterestedness, and indefatigable 
zeal in prosecuting every good work, I have never seen 
equalled, I shall never see excelled." 

In turning to a large parcel of American autographs, 
we observed the following valuable remark in a letter 



322 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. * 

of Gouverneur Morris. Speaking of a distinguished 
Southern politician, he says : " He seems to me one of 
the best of men, who, even if they begin life wrong, soon 
get right; and let me tell you, this thing is much more 
rare than experienced men suppose." 

A letter from Bartram, the celebrated botanist, now 
attracts the eye. It is dated Charleston, S. C, April, 
1775. To what friend it is addressed does not appear ; 
but it is evidently dictated by a heart in which the love 
of goodness and of botany are both prevalent. " I wrote 
yesterday," he says, " to your son John, at Jamaica. I 
begged him to associate with the best characters, and at 
the same time I begged of him to take notice of the 
plants and other natural productions of the island, and 
to send you the seeds and fruits. I am resolved to take 
another scout in the Indian countries. Believe I shall 
go among the Cherokees ; thence through the Creek 
nation to West Florida. I want to see the western 
and mountainous parts of these Colonies, where I hope 
I shall pick up some new things. It 's look'd upon as 
hazardous, but I think there 's a probability of accom- 
plishing it." 

Of Spurzheim, all that could be obtained was one of 
his printed lecture-tickets, on which he wrote the date, and 
on which he also stamped his favorite seal, " Res^ non 
verba qucesoJ^ Every relic of this distinguished man has 
been in great demand ; and unfortunately the supply 
was diminished by the application of his heirs for every 
scrap on which he had written. 

Despairing, however, to present anything approaching 
an adequate idea, or even complete catalogue, of the 
various treasures of this collection, we will only further 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 323 

remark, that the curious in these matters may here in- 
spect entire letters or notes of James Hogg, General 
Braddock, Haydon the distinguished painter and writer, 
Lord Brougham, of whom there are two specimens, Ten- 
nant author of Anster Fair, Dr. Chalmers, John Gait, 
Lucy Aiken, Dr. Parr, John Wilson (a note to William 
Blackwood), Granville Sharp, Clarkson to Joseph Lan- 
caster, Thomas Campbell, Shee the poet and artist, Rog- 
ers the poet, Martin the painter, Mrs. Grant of Laggan, 
J. E,. M'Culloch, Mrs. M'Lehose the Clarinda of Robert 
Burns, Dibdin the bibliographer, Wilberforce, Dr. Ward- 
law, Rev. Rowland Hill, Wiffen the excellent translator 
of Tasso, Marshal Ney, William Godwin, Miss Jews- 
bury the late Mrs. Fletcher, Godoy the Prince of Peace, 
Miss Frances Wright, Rev. Matthew Henry the Bible 
commentator, the Duke of Wellington, Matthews the 
comedian, Francis Jeffrey, Mr. Alison of Edinburgh, 
Leigh Hunt, Scoresby the Arctic navigator, Robert Owen, 
William Roscoe, Mrs. Hemans to a friend on songs and 
song-writing, Lockhart, Napier the present editor of the 
Edinburgh Review, Baron Humboldt (an elegant letter 
of introduction to the late Stephen Elliott, written in 
French), George Canning, General Oglethorpe when in 
Georgia, Dr. Fothergill to John Bartram, De Quincey 
the opium-eater, James the novelist. General Moreau, 
Miss Edgeworth, and Miss Martineau. 

The collection which we have now attempted partially 
to describe is liberally open to the inspection of every 
respectable inquirer. Any important contribution to it 
is received with gratitude by the proprietor. Should the 
present essay awaken attention to the subject, the writer 
will recur with increased pleasure to his " Week spent 
among Autographs." 



324 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 



ANOTHER WEEK AMONG THE AUTOGRAPHS. 

Several valuable acquisitions have been made to the 
collection of I. K. Tefft, Esq., and his kindness permits 
the following notices of them to be communicated to the 
public. 

We have, first, a letter from John Pynchon to his son 
in London, dated Boston, May 18, 1672. This was 
forty-two years after the settlement of Boston. The 
sight of this manuscript carries us back to " the day of 
small things " in that now populous and extended city. 
We see in imagination its three or four churches scat- 
tered among the three hills of the place. We see its few 
crooked streets (a quality which they still possess) wind- 
ing about to accommodate the gathering settlers. Bos- 
ton at this period contained probably three thousand in- 
habitants. Even then they were a noble set of men. 
Only eleven years after the date of this letter, when the 
Colony of Massachusetts fell under the displeasure of 
Charles II., who issued a decree against its charter, a 
legal town-meeting of the freemen was held, and the 
question was put to vote, whether it was their wish that 
the General Court should resign the charter and the privi- 
leges therein granted, and it was resolved in the negative 
unanimously. Soon after. Sir Edmund Andros was 
appointed the first royal governor ; and his administra- 
tion proving arbitrary and oppressive, the people took 
forcible possession of the fort in Boston, and of the Cas- 
tle in the harbor, turned the guns Upon the frigate Rose, 
and compelled her to surrender, seized the Governor, and 
held him a close prisoner under guard in the Castle. 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 325 

These were evidently the true progenitors of those sons 
who, in 1765, resisted the Stamp Act, and in 1773 emp- 
tied the tea-chests into the dock. 

The letter before us, however, which begins with " Son 
Joseph," is only an effusion of anxiety and complaint from 
a loving father, who had heard no tidings of his son for 
a long time. He seems to have resided at Springfield, 
Mass., and to have made a journey all the way to Bos- 
ton to hear something of his son. Though short, the 
letter is full of religious expressions. How different in 
this respect from most letters in modern days ! The 
writer prays that his son may be delivered from the tem- 
pest of the times, and so with his earnest prayers he 
leaves him to the Lord. 

The next specimen (we take them promiscuously, 
without classification) is of high value. It is no less 
than a long letter from the celebrated poet Wieland, 
author of Oberon. It is addressed to Pfeffel, himself a 
jurist and diplomatist of considerable eminence. Many 
an enthusiastic German collector would cheerfully give 
a small bit of his little finger to be possessed of this 
treasure. It is observed by Menzel, one of the ablest 
living German critics, that "it w^as "Wieland who first 
restored to German poetry the free and fearless glance of 
a child of the world ; a natural grace, a taste for cheer- 
ful merriment, and the power of affording it. The cheer- 
ful, amiable, refined Wieland," he continues, " a genius 
exhaustless in grace and lightness, in wit and jest, 
banished the unnatural from German poetry, discov- 
ered nature in the world as it is, and taught the na- 
tional mind to move easily, firmly, and in harmony." 
If we trusted this description alone, we might suppose 

28 



326 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

that a German would value an autograph of Wieland 
as highly as an Englishman would prize one of Pope 
or Addison, or an American one of Irving. But, unfor- 
tunately, the delicate wit, sparkling fancy, and fascinat- 
ing style of Wieland are, in too many of his works, 
brought into the service of an Epicurean and sceptical 
spirit. It does not diminish, but rather enhances, the 
value of the specimen before us, that it was written when 
Wieland was quite a young man, — only about seven- 
teen years old; for we have examples enough of his 
composition at more advanced periods, and our curiosity 
is particularly gratified by seeing how the youthful poet 
and scholar expressed himself, so long before he felt the 
public eyes of admiration and criticism fastened upon 
him. The letter itself is of sufficient interest to be ex- 
tracted entire. We make use, with a few immaterial 
alterations, of a translation furnished to Mr. Tefft by 
some German friend. 

" GoTTiNGEN, April 16, 1750. 
"Dearest and best Aulic Councillor :* — 

" I have been waiting three or four days for the departure of 
the mail, to give you some account of my journey and happy 
arrival at Gottingen. Our fate, as far down as Durlach, you 
have learned from Mr. Wild. I arrived safely at Frankfort, 
where I stayed the greatest part of the time with Mr. Sarasin, 
and after three days went to Cassel, where I experienced a kind 
reception from the Countess. She desired me to let the mail- 
coach proceed, and promised to procure me a private conveyance 
for Gottingen. An acquaintance of hers conducted me through 
the whole town, and gave me a sight of everything remarkable. 
I had her invitation for supper, breakfast, and dinner. I related 

^f An Aulic Councillor was a member of the Imperial Council, who also 
exercised the functions of judges of the Supreme Court of the German 
Empire. 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 327 

to her the conduct of her son, — his faults, his indolence, — with- 
out the least reserve. She was much pleased when she heard 
that, notwithstanding all of them, he still retained the affection of 
yourself and Mr. Lerfe. She promises to aid you in some suit- 
able method to effect his correction. Full confidence is placed in 
your skill and experience in education, and she will shortly 
write to Colmar. The letter I received at Frankfort from the 
Count gave her a great deal of uneasiness, as it spoke of a rising 
upon his right shoulder. It was her wish that he should drink 
beer in lieu of wine at his meals. May I beseech you, my dear- 
est Mr. Pfeffel, to console her on these two points in your next 
monthly letter. She truly deserves all the attention and pains 
that you can take on her account. She is the noblest woman, 
the best mother, — so without all pretension, and full of kindness. 
Never have I seen so many good qualities united in one woman. 
Do not consider this a blind judgment of mine ; on the contrary, 
I was fully prejudiced against her ere I knew her so complete- 
ly, and I feel persuaded that, after the visit she intends pay- 
ing you, you will be of the same opinion with me. The Count, 
as much as I esteem his good heart, is not worthy of such a 
mother. May you soon be able to give her better news of him. 
She expects none before the expiration of three months ; but 
flatters herself that her contemplated measures, together with his 
governors, will produce a change of mind. She gave me a letter 
of introduction to the Pastor Feder, and desired me to write to 
her from time to time. 

" Monday, the 10th, I arrived here at Gottingen. Your son 
is perfectly well. We board together with young Stonar (an 
excellent youth), Escher from Zurich, and Zwickig ; and as our 
chambers are close together, we can always be in company. He 
has given me his entire confidence, and I think we shall continue 
in the closest harmony. How great is my good fortune to culti- 
vate that friendship with the son which his noblest father has 
honored me with ! To-morrow our lectures commence, four of 
which we have in common, and we can recite together. 



328 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

" I cannot express my thanks for your letters of introduction to 
Mr. and Mrs. Less, and the kindness and indulgence you have 
favored me with. It is my daily wish that an opportunity may 
occur to enable me by deeds to show that I am not ungrateful. 

" I am much pleased with this city and its establishments, but 
never walked a more costly pavement. The purse must be con- 
tinually in hand, and everything is paid for fourfold. 

" May you, my dearest and best Aulic Councillor, continue in 
uninterrupted health. Remember me in the circles of your ami- 
able friends, your dearest consort, Mr. Lerfe, Luce and his wor- ' 
thy companion, the country counsellor, most kindly ; and accept 
assurances of my everlasting attachment and regard. Your obe- 
dient friend and servant, 

" WiELAND." 

The next is a truly precious memorial, — a note to 
Alexander Cunningham from Dr. Hugh Blair, author of 
the " Sermons " and " Lectures on Rhetoric." Both the 
authorship and the subject-matter induce us to extract it 
entire, although it has already been printed in Currie's 
Life of Burns. 

" Dear Sir, — As you told me that you had in view in the 
new Edition of Mr. Burn's works to publish some of his Letters, 
I now send you enclosed, (as I promised you,) his Letter of 
thanks to me upon his leaving Edinburgh. It is so much marked 
by the stroke of his Genius, that I thought it worth while to pre- 
sent it, among letters from some other persons. If you think it 
proper to be published with other Letters of his, I have no ob- 
jection. You wiU please take a copy of it, and send me back the 
Original, which I mean to keep. I would have called with it, 
but I am still confined by some remains of the Gout, and by a 
Cold which I contracted on coming to town. 

" Yours, most faithfully, 

" Hugh Blaie. 

" Argyle Square, Friday, Id Decemher.^^ 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 329 

It will be seen here that Dr. Blair in a few instances 
retains the antique fashion of beginning his nouns-sub- 
stantive with capital letters. Another peculiarity, and 
identical with Sir "Walter Scott's, which we formerly 
noticed, is, that he rarely dots an i or crosses a t, and is 
much too sparing of his punctuation. Out of the thirty- 
eight small f s occurring in the note, to say nothing of 
several neglected /s, only five are dotted. What could 
have been the secret cause of this distinction ? Was it 
mere caprice, or was it everlasting principle ? Perhaps 
a few dots were conscientiously sprinkled here and there 
to preserve the just rights of this excellent little letter 
from utter prostration. The i's fare a great deal worse, 
for they have not the sign of a cross from the beginning 
to the end of the note. There is nothing, not even a 
difference in length, to distinguish them from the lofty 
Z's. The entire note, however, is written in a large, bold, 
legible hand ; indeed, almost wonderful for a man of 
about eighty years of age, which Dr. Blair must have 
been at the time of writing it. Do we then see before us 
the actual chirography in which were penned those beau- 
tiful and admirable Sermons that have charmed so many 
thousand readers of taste and pious sensibility, as well 
as those far-famed Lectures, which, in spite of some de- 
fects, have formed and guided the taste of the last and 
present generations of English and American scholars ? 
Emotions, at once classical and sacred, may well be ex- 
cused for overflowing at the sight of a relic like this. , 
Nor can we be induced to dismiss it without fondly lin- 
gering over it a little longer, and detecting even the slight- 
est peculiarity which may transport us in imagination 
into the familiar presence of the much-honored dead. 

28=* 



830 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

Behold, then, the highly decorated flourish of the initial 
H in the signature of Hugh Blair! See the long and 
graceful dash which the hand of the octogenarian struck 
forth upon the superscription of the note! Who can 
fail to perceive, even in these minute characteristics, the 
external traces of that elegant mind which had so long 
been employed in the fervent contemplation of beauty 
in all its forms and manifestations ? 

We must also notice the large, thick, black wafer, 
which mutely tells the story of some recent bereave- 
ment in the family of the venerable sage. The irregular 
folds, which considerably differ from a perfect parallelo- 
gram, shall be charitably ascribed to the trembling hand 
of age, or to the unavoidable hurry of the moment. 
Doubtless the writer had many billets to answer, and 
many attentions to respond to, on his occasional visits 
to town. Nor shall criticism be severe on the slight 
mistake at the beginning of the note, where, in the ex- 
pression " Mr. Burn's works," by a wrong location of the 
apostrophe, the poet's name is written as if it were Burn 
instead of Burns. We remember that some enemy of 
the Doctor during his lifetime, goaded by the fact that 
ten editions of the first volume of his Sermons were 
called for in one year after their publication, malignantly 
sent forth to the world an appalling list of all sorts of 
errors discovered in that single volume of a Professor of 
Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the University of Edin- 
burgh. A far different feeling, even a sacred and rever- 
ent curiosity, has actuated us in thus examining, as it 
were, the very shreds and dust of this hallowed instru- 
ment, which we now reluctantly dismiss. 

Following this, we take up what must be allowed on 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 331 

all hands to be quite an autographical gem. It is the 
superscription of a note, addressed by Frederic the Great 
to his confidential friend and correspondent, the distin- 
guished Baron de la Motte Fouque. The paper em- 
ployed by his Majesty was of a thick, coarse, bluish- 
white. But what had the greatest warrior of the age, 
when writing to one of his greatest generals, to do with 
pink-colored, hot-pressed, wire-wove, gilt-edged, billet- 
doux fabrics ? The superscription is written in a noble 
and beautiful style, — bold, grand, flowing, as if execut- 
ed by a hand accustomed to the victories of the Seven 
Years' War, — at the same time, however, perfectly dis- 
tinct and legible, as if characteristic of a monarch 
who was equally inclined to the pursuits of literature 
and taste. The leading address is in French, after this 
fashion : — 

" To my General of Infantry, 

The Baron de la Motte Fouque, 

at 

Brandenburg." 

At one corner of the superscription is written in the 
German language this announcement : " Accompanied 
by a box of cherries, and two melons." 

On another fold of the paper is written in French, in 
Fouque's handwriting, which confers on it a high ad- 
ditional value, the following notice ; — 
" Sans-Souci, July 5, 1766. 
Invitation to come to Sans-Souci, 
together with the reply." 

The autograph is still further enriched by a distinct 
and finely preserved seal of the royal coat of arms. The 
device is gorgeously beautiful. 



332 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

Two intelligent Germans, to whom we have shown 
the whole specimen, much doubt whether, after all, it 
contains the veritable handwriting of the renowned 
monarch. They assert that Frederic, having only had a 
French education, was incapable of writing such correct 
German as the inscription in the corner of the note. 
They think it probable that the whole direction proceed- 
ed from the pen of the royal secretary. If these sugges- 
tions should prove correct, of course the delightful visions 
of our imagination respecting the correspondence of the 
handwriting with Frederic's character must be dispelled 
into air, unless we suppose that the secretary himself, by 
long and intimate acquaintance with his master, had 
imbibed or unconsciously imitated some of his lofty 
qualities. 

There is next a very curious historical document, 
penned by the Earl of Annandale in the year 1707, in 
the midst of the troubles which distracted Scotland at 
that period. Many a letter has been printed far less in- 
teresting than this. It transports us to the very field of 
battle, where we are told of prisoners coming in and 
Highlanders threatening attacks, and the Duke of Ar- 
gyle having returned to the camp, and eight score of the 
enemy having just been seen climbing the hills, &c., and 
all written on a piece of paper so small as to show the 
extreme scarcity of that article even in the government 
camp. 

Lo ! another precious relic ! A leaf from the Diary of 
Henry Kirke White, the poet. We all remember that 
poor Henry passed some time in an attorney's office be- 
fore he was assisted by Mr. Wilberforce to prepare for 
a university education. While breathing that ungenial 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 333 

atmosphere, he committed to paper this brief skeleton- 
record of a few of his unhappy days. The very sight of 
it is dreary and melancholy, like the writer's heart. All 
that we here learn of his occupations is, that on Satur- 
day, the 8th of some month, he was engaged in " en- 
tering up the Hall books ; on Monday, the 10th, copy- 
ing all the morning certain letters for Mr. Enfield; on 
Wednesday, fair-copying a schedule of fines and amerce- 
ments ; on Thursday, do. do. another copy on unstamped 
parchment ; on Friday, the 14th, drawing advertisement 
of two heifers, the property of Edward Musson, being 
stolen or strayed out of his close in the parish of Rad- 
ford. Attending the printer therewith," &c., &c. 

One blessed blank appears amidst these worldly de- 
tails. It is that of Sunday the 9th. Nothing is record- 
ed under this date, except the simple day. And one can- 
not but vividly sympathize with such a being as Kirke 
White for this short though happy respite from labors 
which he must have loathed. Henry Kirke White's 
Sabbath I It is almost a subject for a poem. Imagina- 
tion follows him to his closet, to his church, to his lonely 
evening walk, to the long portion of his night spent 
over his Bible, his Milton, or some of England's noblest 
divines. The handwriting of this specimen is manly, 
and elegantly plain. 

This is succeeded by another rarity, — a letter from 
the celebrated George Whitfield, dated London, June 13, 
1755, then in the forty-first year of his age, to his nephew 
James Whitfield, at Savannah in Georgia. It is so char- 
acteristic, that it must here be inserted entire. 

" My Dear Jemmy, — I wrote to you a few days ago by a 
Carolina ship, and since that have received your two letters, 



334 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

which convinced me that you was not ungrateful. May this 
crime of crimes in respect either to God or man, be never justly 
laid to your charge ! Remember your present, as well as future 
and eternal all, in a great measure depends on the improvement 
of a few growing years. Be steady and diligent and pious 7iow, 
and you will find that God will do wonders for you. The Cap- 
tain is mightily pleased ; and your father, notwithstanding his 
affection to see you, is glad you are provided for. Your sister 
Fanny will soon be married, and Fanny Greville is already dis- 
posed of. Her husband (a young attorney of Bath) has sent me 
a very obliging letter. Oh that my relations were born of God ! 
I hope you will not rest without it. To encourage you in out- 
ward matters, I have sent you, in part of payment, some loaf- 
sugar, which I thought would be a good commodity. Your father 
also hath sent you some buckles, knit breeches, and a dolphin 
cheese, with a letter. All which I hope will come to hand. 
Write often ; work hard, and pray much, and beheve me to be, 
my dear Jemmy, 

" Your affectionate uncle and assured friend, 

« G. W." 

Following this is a curious affair, which appears to be 
enveloped in a little mystery. It is something like a 
mourning-card, containing an inscription by the cele- 
brated Lavater. It was lately given to Dr. Sprague of 
Albany by Lavater's son-in-law, at Zurich, in Switzer- 
land, the birthplace and residence of the great physiog- 
nomist. The following is an exact translation of the 
whole inscription : — 

" To a Friend after my Death. 
Let everything be a sin to thee, and that 
alone, which separates thee from the 
Lord. 18th November, 1794. L." 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 335 

The sentiment is so excellent, that we will attempt to 
give it here a metrical clothing : — 

Detest as sinful, and detest alone, 

Whate'er removes thee from the Eternal One. 

Another card succeeds, of a different kind, but of still 
more value, probably, as an autograph. It is from the 
celebrated Goethe, who asks of Professor Riemer the 
loan, for a short time, of the Bohemian Grammar. This, 
by the way, is an excellent method of borrowing books. 
The card is a kind of substantial acknowledgment, 
which leads at once to the recovery of a missing volume, 
often of more value to its owner than money. When 
will the borrowers of books exercise consciences void of 
offence in this matter, and be as scrupulous in restoring 
to the proprietor some cherished author, or the frag- 
ment of some precious set of twelve or twenty volumes, 
as they are in honoring a note at the bank, or discharg- 
ing the bill of a flourishing tradesman ? Until a more 
scrupulous punctuality on this subject shall prevail, the 
morality and the civilization of literature will be far from 
perfect. To return to Goethe's card, we have only fur- 
ther to observe, that the signature alone appears to be 
the handwriting of the great magician-poet, while the 
rest of the manuscript probably proceeded from his aman- 
uensis. 

Mr. Tefft has recently received, from a friend at the 
North, an original manuscript letter of William Penn, 
which he regards as one of the most valuable autographs 
in his collection. Letters written by this distinguished 
man are extreme rarities at the present day, Mr. Tefft 
having hitherto never been able to procure more than a 



336 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

bare signature, cut out from some parchment document. 
This letter is precious on more than one account, — not 
only as being a veritable original from the hand of the 
far-famed Quaker, but as exhibiting the characteristic 
qualities of the man. We see in it his downright sim- 
plicity, his quaintness of style, his remarkable force of 
mind, his rare mingling of religious humility with a bold 
and decided line of policy. The reader may be remind- 
ed that Penn, at the date of the letter, was forty-two 
years of age. Only four years previously, he had pur- 
chased, settled, and visited his colonial establishment in 
America. He had now returned to England, and had 
taken lodgings near the court of King James IL, to exer- 
cise his influence with that monarch in behalf of his phil- 
anthropic schemes. In this situation, it seems, he had 
heard of some unhappy disorders that had disturbed his 
infant colony in America. The letter before us is chiefly 
occupied in suggesting measures to suppress them. Car- 
olinians will be interested in the allusion to the respect- 
ability and substantial condition of many of the original 
settlers of their native State. 

Thomas Lloyd, to whom the letter is addressed, suc- 
ceeded William Penn as President of the Colony. He 
appears to have been an unsalaried officer. Judging 
from several of Penn's expressions, we should conjecture 
that he was dissatisfied with Lloyd's want of energy in 
suppressing the disturbances, though he shrinks from pre- 
ferring any direct complaint. His mind certainly seems 
to have been wrought up into a sad gust of perplexities 
and anxieties. But now for the letter itself. The or- 
thography is exactly transcribed. 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 337 

" "Worminghurst, 17th 9 mo 
1686. 
"Dear Tho: Lloyd 

" Thyn by way of new york is with me, & first I am extreamly 
sorry to hear that Pennsilvania is so Litigious, and brutish. The 
report reaches this place with yt disgrace, yt we have lost I am 
told, 15000 persons this fall, many of ym men of great estates yt 
are gone and going for Carolina. O that some one person would 
in ye zeal of a true Phinias & ye meekness of a Christian spirit 
together, stand up for our good beginnings, and bring a savour of 
righteousness over that ill savour. I cared not what I gave such 
an one, if it were an 100£ or more out of myn own pocket, I would 
and will do it, if he be to be found, for ye neglect such a care of 
ye publick might draw on his own affaires, but I hope to be 
ready in the Spring, my selfe, and I think, with power and reso- 
lution to do ye Just thing, lett it fall on whom it will. O thomas, 
I cannot express to thee ye greif yt is upon me for it. but my 
private affaires as well as my publick ones, will not lett me budge 
hence yet ; tho I desire it with so much zeal, and for yt reason 
count myself a Prisoner here. 

" I waite for answear of yt about ye laws ; for yt of ye money, 
I am better satisfied, tho' Quo warrantos at every turn have 
formerly threatened. I hope some of those yt once feared I 
had to much powr will now see I have not enough, & yt ex- 
cess of powr does not ye mischief yt Licentiousness does to a 
State, for tho ye one oppresses ye pocket, the other turns all to 
confusion ; order & peace with poverty is certainly better. It 
almost tempts me to deliver up to ye K. [King] & lett a merce- 
nary Gover'r have ye taming of them. O where is fear of god 
& common decency, pray do wt thou canst to appease or punish 
such persons, & if in office, out with ym, forthwith. If J. White 
and P. Robson be of ym, displace them Immediately. Thorn, 
think not hard of it because of charge in comeing, being and goe- 
ing. I vjHI be accountable for yt, if thou please but to do yt 
29 



338 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

friendly part, lett T. Hor : J. Har : J. Clap, R. Tur : J. Good : 
T. Sim, see this & who else thou pleasest. if you have any love 
to me, & desire to see me & myn with you, o prevent these 
things that you may not add to my exercises. If a few such 
weighty men mett apart & waited on god for his minde & wis- 
dom & in ye sense & authority of yt, you appeared for ye hon- 
our of god, ye reputation of the governour & credit & prosperity 
of ye Country, to check such persons, calling ym before you as 
my ffds [friends] ; men of Credit with me ; & sett your united 
Shoulder to it, methinks it may be better, to ye Lord I leave 
you saluting you all in endless Love, being & remaining, 

" Your true and loving 
ffriend 

"Wm. Penn. 
" Salute me to thy Dr 

wife, tell her she must 

remember her name in 

my business, also to 

thy children. 
" give my love to ye Gover'r * &c. 

«P. S. 

" Ffor Bait. & Sas-quhanagh [Susquehannah] I have not ended, 
being otherwise stopt too, I waite my time, but doubt not being 
upon good terms, lett none be brittle about my not being there 
yet, I come with all ye speed I can ;'''tho I must say, twere better 
all were in another order first ; for these disorders — strike ym 
back I have had some regard to in staying ; which is a sad dis- 
appointment to me & ye country. 



* "Who this Governor was, it is difficult to imagine. The historical rec- 
ords of Pennsylvania mention no presiding officer as being there at this 
time, except Thomas Lloyd himself. He is designated, however, as " Presi- 
dent," and there may have been a magistrate subordinate to him with the 
title of Governor. 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 339 

" The East Jersey Prop'rs believe thy report about my letter 
to yee. I am not with ym once in two months, they meet 
weekly, they are very angry with G. Lowry. Salute me to 
Frds There away, old Lewis & wife ; also to Capt. Berry, I have 
sent his letters as directed, press him about land for me in East 
Jersey. I shall fall heavy on G. L. if I live, for denying him in 
my wrong, till all be taken up yt is desirable. Speak to G. L. 
thyself about it, for wt he has done will be overturned (I per- 
ceive) by ym here, & he served. Vale. 

" Myn salute yee." 

Allusion has already been once or twice made to Dr. 
Alexander Murray. This gentleman was Professor in 
the University of Edinburgh, and the greatest Oriental 
scholar of his day. He died about the year 1813. He 
was author of a " History of the European Languages," 
"Life of Bruce the Traveller," and other works. We 
have before us a few extremely interesting memorials of 
his genius and pursuits. One of them is a sheet of paper 
crowded in every part with some of the exercises of the 
great linguist in acquiring a foreign tongue. Among 
his other accomplishments, he was an elegant poet ; and 
accordingly, we have here a few rough but very curious 
sketches from his Muse. The following unfinished stan- 
za, which appears to be the commencement of a song 
intended for some festive club, will strongly remind us 
of the daring, reckless tone of Robert Burns : — 

" Though whingean' carles should vex their hearts, 

And ca' our social meetings sin, 
Awa! we ken their halie arts ! 

An honest man defies their din. 
When brithers twelve in Session sat, 

And He was Head that ken'd them a', 
The Deil came ben, and claim'd his debt, 

The sourest man " 



340 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

Probably he was here about to write amang them a\ 
But perceiving that it would make a false rhyme, he 
threw by the whole affair, which has thus remained in- 
complete. 

On another scrap of paper, we find a few elegiac stan- 
zas, quite unfinished, and full of interlineary corrections 
and erasures, but intermingled with beautiful touches of 
poetry. 

A gentleman of Charleston, S. C. has recently pre- 
sented Mr. Tefft with a letter addressed to him seven- 
teen years ago, by the celebrated Macaulay. It was 
written when both himself and his correspondent were 
members of the University of Cambridge in England, 
and bears evident marks of that resplendent talent which 
has since so frequently dazzled and delighted Europe and 
America. 

Another gentleman of Charleston has contributed a 
signature of General Moultrie, attached to some public in- 
strument, and accidentally found in the street. Moultrie 
had a curious device or flourish with which he ornament- 
ed his signature. It resembled more than anything else 
a fortification^ with its bastions, its salient angles, its re- 
treating angles, its squares, compartments, &c. Might 
not one fancy that there was always about him a kind 
of unconscious memory of the most important crisis of 
his life, and which outwardly expressed itself in this very 
characteristic manner ? 

We have already mentioned the collection of the Eev. 
Dr. Raffles of Liverpool. We are now permitted to pre- 
sent the following extract of a letter from that gentle- 
man to Mr. Tefft, respecting some portion of his collec- 
tion, and we must confess that the extraordinary value 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 341 

and magnificence of its contents far surpass our utmost 
previous conceptions. 

" You ask me about my collection of Autographs, my method 
of arrangement, &c., &c. I have several series. The first and 
principal series consists of the autographs, chiefly letters, of em- 
inent and remarkable persons of all classes and countries, from 
the time of Henry VII. of England to the present day. These 
are put upon tinted paper of folio size ; one leaf of the paper con- 
taining the autograph, and the other the portrait, or something 
else illustrative of the history of the individual : — for instance, 
with Addison's autograph you will find his portrait after Sir God- 
frey Kneller, and an original number of the Spectator. With 
Dr. Johnson's, you will find a view of the house in which he was 
born, at Litchfield, and the house in which he died, &c. This 
collection I hope soon to bind, and expect it will amount to 
twenty volumes. To this I intend adding a supplementary vol- 
ume of Biographical Notices. This volume is alphabetically ar- 
ranged. 

" 2d. My American collection. This is not yet arranged. It 
contains the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, — one of 
which alone is wanting,* — all the Presidents, with many of the 
Vice-Presidents and Governors of States ; Divines, and other 
public characters, — civil, naval, military, and miscellaneous. I 
have not yet determined as to the way in which I shall arrange 
these ; but if on folio tinted paper like the others, I should think 
that it would amount to eight or ten volumes. 

" 3d. Authors. I have a large collection of letters of authors 
of all kinds, which I intend to bind up alphabetically, with por- 
traits in quarto, leaving a blank leaf between each letter for bio- 
graphical notices. This will contain many duplicates of such as 
are in the first-mentioned series, and to these I may perhaps add 
Artists. 

* George Taylor. 
29* 



342 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

" 4th. Nobility. Containing duplicates of such as are in the 
first collection by reason of their celebrity, or in the third in con- 
sequence of their being authors ; or such as, having nothing but 
their rank to distinguish them, are already in neither of the above 
series. 

"5th. To the above classes I may add several distinct and 
separate volumes, which are complete in themselves ; e. g. : — 

" A volume containing one hundred and twenty autographs, let- 
ters of the late Rev. Andrew Fuller, — quarto. 

" A volume containing letters of Fuller, Ryland, Fawcett, 
Pearce (of Birmingham), &c., — folio. 

"A volume of letters to George Whitfield, all indorsed by 
himself, — folio. 

" Do. Do. — quarto. 

" The entire MS. of James Montgomery's Pelican Isle, with 
other poems, composing his last published volume, — quarto. 

" The entire MS. of Wiffen's translation of Tasso, — 2 vols, 
quarto. 

" The Church Book of Oliver Heywood, the rejected Minister. 
— An invaluable little book, written wholly with his own hand, 
containing his covenant, and that of the church, and biographical 
notices of the members. 

" A Thesis, by Dr. Watts. 

*' A Manuscript (Algebra), by Abraham Sharp of Bradford, 
the friend and correspondent of Sir Isaac Newton, — a 4to vol. 

" A considerable collection of foreigners, not included in the 
first series. 

" A collection of Notes, which will form several volumes oc- 
tavo. 

" A folio volume of documents on vellum. 

" A folio volume of franks of the Peers at the coronation of 
George IV., &c., &c., &c. 

" I am, sir, &c. 

"Thos. Raffles." 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 343 

In a letter recently received, Dr. Raffles says: " Pray, 
are your Signers complete ? I look with mingled emo- 
tions of sorrow and hope upon the only hiatus I have in 
mine." 

We formerly inquired why so considerable a propor- 
tion of Autograph-collectors appear to be clergymen. 
Might not a phrenologist account for it by the disposi- 
tion to reverence, which may be supposed to be common 
between both descriptions of persons ? The same senti- 
ment which conducts the mind to the venerable records 
of Scripture, and to the Ancient of Days, may guide 
them also to other relics of antiquity, and every surviv- 
ing memorial of greatness. The following paragraph 
from the newspapers exhibits the taste for autographs in 
a rather curious form : — 

" The Rev. Dr. Cotton, Ordinary of Newgate, has, for a long 
series of years, been devoting his attention to the collection of 
dying speeches, trials, &c. of celebrated criminals, as well as their 
autographs; and whenever they could possibly be obtained, of 
their portraits also. The Rev. Ordinary likewise possesses an 
extraordinary collection of Chinese drawings, representing the 
torments in after-life upon evil-doers, according to Chinese 
beHef." 

In our first essay on Autographs, we complained that 
the English Cyclopsedias contained very scanty and 
trivial notices of the subject. A friend has since kindly 
sent to us a volume of the " Dictionnaire de la Con- 
versation et de la Lecture," from which we translate the 
following article, as an appropriate conclusion to our au- 
tographic lucubrations. 

" Autograph, from the Greek aiitos, self, and grapho, to write, 
signifies a writing from an author's own hand. If the men of for- 



344 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

mer generations had attached the same value that we do to auto- 
graph manuscripts of great writers, to letters, and to the signa- 
tures of celebrated personages, we should neither be compelled to 
regret the loss of so many Greek, Latin, and French productions, 
of which there remain scarcely the titles or even a melancholy 
remembrance, nor the destruction of so many letters, memoirs, 
and diplomatic documents, which might have assisted in dissipat- 
ing the darkness and the contradictions that envelop the history 
of ancient times and the Middle Ages, and in filling up the chasms 
with which it abounds. In countries where elementary instruc- 
tion is as yet but little diffused, in ages when it was unknown, 
and even at very recent epochs, when it was too much neglected, 
avaricious, ignorant, or superstitious heirs sold by weight, or de- 
livered to the flames, without scruple and without examination, all 
papers which had been transmitted to them by deceased relatives. 
This is no longer the case at the present day, especially at Paris. 
The preservation of papers and of autograph writings has be- 
come the object of a special anxiety, of a sort of idolatry, which 
among some individuals has degenerated into a mania, a folly. 
From this state of things has resulted a new kind of commerce, 
which traffickers and speculators openly undertake for the sake 
of profit. Letters, autographic documents, signatures affixed to 
diplomas, to pubhc acts, or to receipts, upon paper or parchment, 
are taken clandestinely from public libraries, from various ar- 
chives, and from other literary and political depositories, by un- 
faithful officers or unscrupulous amateurs. They are sought for, 
they are discovered, among grocers and dealers in goods. Pur- 
chased for a mere trifle, they are resold to the curious at a 
very high price. The search for these kinds of manuscripts has 
also produced a new branch of industry. As comparatively few 
persons are wealthy enough to form expensive collections of au- 
tographs, the defect is supplied by engravings, and by the still 
more economic processes of lithography. Facsimiles, traced 
after the originals, have been published, either separately or in 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 345 

new editions of our best classic authors, Corneille, Racine, Boi- 
leau, Bossuet, Fenelon, Lafontaine, Madame de Sevigne, Vol- 
taire, J. J. Rousseau, &c. They have been inserted in pictu- 
resque travels and other works. But it is principally in collections 
devoted to the purpose, that they are found in the greatest num- 
ber. One of the most prominent is the work entitled ' li'Icono- 
graphie Universelle,' (Universal Likeness-Magazine,) where the 
facsimile of the handwriting of each illustrious personage is 
subjoined to a biographical notice of him, accompanied by his 
portrait. It is especielly in L' Isographie des Hommes ctlehres 
{Handwritings of celebrated Men Imitated), published in thirty- 
one numbers in quarto, from 1827 to 1830, that we find the 
most curious and the most numerous collection of fac-similes of 
autograph letters and signatures. It contains not less than seven 
hundred, of which the originals were borrowed from the library 
of the King, from those of Vienna, Prague, Munich, &c., from 
the archives of the kingdom and of the different bureaus of ad- 
ministration, and from private cabinets. Lithographic collections 
of autographs have likewise appeared in England and in Ger- 
many ; but they are neither so complete, nor so well arranged, 
nor so well executed. The Royal Library of Paris possesses an 
immense collection of manuscripts, autograph letters, and signa- 
tures of kings, princes, ministers, warriors, scholars, and illustri- 
ous persons of both sexes, whether French or foreigners, from 
the thirteenth century to the present time. Conspicuous among 
them are the voluminous correspondences of Marguerite of Valois 
Queen of Navarre, of the Dukes of Guise, the Constable de 
Montmorency, the Mareschal de Saulx-Tavannes, the Cardinals 
du Bellay, Richelieu, de Retz and de Noailles, de Peiresc, and 
de Bouillaud ; collections of letters from Francis I., Henry IV., 
Louis XIV. ; the original manuscript of the Telemachus of Fene- 
lon. There also is a choice selection of signatures by men of 
every kind of celebrity, affixed to receipts and other instruments 
on parchment, among which are three or four signed by Mo- 



346 A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 

Here, and discovered a few years ago. This is all that remains 
of the handwriting of our most illustrious comic author. Several 
thousand pounds' weight of parchments of a similar description 
have been sold at different times for very insignificant prices to 
tradesmen, who, after selecting the rarest and most interesting 
specimens, have sold them again to different amateurs. The 
rest has been passed off to bookbinders and to glue-makers. Au- 
tographs also abound in the archives of the Palais de Justice, 
and the different dej^artments of administration, still more in the 
archives of the kingdom, where, among rare and curious docu- 
ments, there is preserved a charter of St. Louis, together with 
the original of the instrument containing the famous oath pro- 
nounced, in the tennis-court at Versailles, in 1789, and subscribed 
by the great majority of deputies to the States-General. In the 
same place, also, are preserved the signatures of all the members 
of the National Convention, and of several other legislative as- 
semblies. However rich France may be in autographs, she is 
surpassed, not in number, but in antiquity and rarity, by Italy and 
Spain, if it be true that the library of Florence contains the Gos- 
pel of St. John, written by his own hand, and that several auto- 
graph manuscripts of St. Augustine exist in the library of the 
Escurial. The most important collections of autograph letters 
and signatures in the possession of amateurs in Paris, are those 
of M. Le Courte de Chateau-Giron ; the late Marquis de Dolo- 
mieu ; Mons. de Monmerque, Councillor of the royal court ; 
Mons. Guilbert-Pixerecourt, a professor of literature; Mons. 
Berard, a Deputy and Councillor of State ; and Mons. Berthe- 
vin, formerly keeper of the Royal Printing Establishment. That 
of Mons. Villenave, more numerous perhaps than the others, 
contains, it is said, twenty-two thousand signatures of different 
writings ; but the greater part of them were written by persons 
more remarkable by their rank, their titles, and their offices, than 
for their actions or productions. For instance, all the French 
generals of the Revolution, even the most obscure, figure in this 



A WEEK AMONG AUTOGRAPHS. 347 

collection. We will also refer to the collections of M. de Saint- 
Gervais, the Marquis Aligre, M. Anatole de Montesquieu, and 
Mons. Perie, Director of the Museum at Nimes, and husband of 
Madame Simons-Candeille." 

It may be mentioned, as an instance of the extreme 
difficulty of procm'ing a complete set of the signatures to 
the Declaration of Independence, that Mr. Tefft, although 
an American, and enjoying for many years great facili- 
ties in the pursuit of autographs, has been able, with the 
utmost exertions, to procure no more than thirty-nine 
out of the original fifty-six signatures. It is remark- 
able that Dr. Raffles of Liverpool should have been so 
much more successful in this branch of the pursuit. 
Mr. Tefft' s present list of desiderata is as follows : Brax- 
ton, Floyd, Hart, Lynch, jun., L. Morris, Middleton, 
Morton, Nelson, jun., Penn, Ross, Read, Rodney, Stone, 
Smith, Taylor, Thornton, Wilson.* Should the present 
notices ever meet the eye of some happy possessor of 
any of these lacking signatures, perchance he may be 
still happier by generously transmitting them to the ad- 
dress of I. K. Tefft, Esq., Savannah, who, we feel as- 
sured, would in that instance complete the degrees of 
comparison, and become in very deed the happiest. 

*■ These desiderata have been supplied to Mr. Tefft since the original pub- 
lication of the essay, and in a great degree, the author is highly gratified to 
learn, in consequence of its appearance. President Sparks sent him no less 
than three letters of the Signers. 



ESTIMATE OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL WRIT- 
INGS OF DR. THOMAS BROWN, 



INCLUDING 



SOME REMARKS ON MENTAL PHILOSOPHY. 



It cannot be regarded as a proof of the superiority of 
the present age, that comparatively so little attention is 
bestowed on intellectual philosophy. In spite of the 
occasional fluctuations of public taste, we are persuaded 
that the science of mind is still destined to take prece- 
dence of all others. 

The flippant and superficial remark has been made, 
and that too by very high authority, that the philosophy 
of the mind is a useless pursuit, because every one may 
become his own mental philosopher ; that one has only 
to look within, and he will there find all that the pro- 
foundest thinker can acquaint him with. Never was 
hazarded a bolder or more assailable error than this. Is 
botany a useless science, because herbs and flowers, 
enough to fill whole catalogues, may be found within a 
mile from the cottage of every hard-working farmer ? 
Is astronomy a vain pursuit, because every sailor on the 
watch, by only turning his head upwards, can count the 



brown's philosophy of mind. 349 

stars moving over him, and mark the courses which they 
take ? Has one man in a thousand the ability to fasten 
his attention on the operations of his own mind ; and do 
not the occupations, habits, passions, and characters of a 
large majority of mankind lead their thoughts away from 
themselves, and fix them on external things? 

Such being the universal and inevitable lot of humani- 
ty, we cannot conceive of a more useful, or directly prac- 
tical employment, than for those individuals whose op- 
portunities and powers of contemplation permit, to sit 
in the seclusion of study apart from active engagements, 
and there to fix their thoughts exclusively on the consti- 
tution of the mind ; to trace action up to its central 
sources ; to take a full survey of the mental phenomena ; 
to estimate especially the extent of the human powers ; 
to analyze, to describe, to classify, every internal property 
and faculty ; to suggest modes of applying them in their 
proper directions, and to their proper objects ; in one 
word, to unfold before the sight of their fellow-beings 
that which so very few know, — what they are, and 
what they can become. 

Now, though there are not many men capable of origi- 
nating these comprehensive, introverted surveys and es- 
timates, yet, after they are made, there are large num- 
bers who can read them with enjoyment and profit. It 
is no small thing to direct a man's attention to himself; 
yet this is effected by the very sight of a book on the 
mind. The soul for a moment swells before it with the 
consciousness of its untried and indefinite powers. The 
contents of most libraries lead one away from one's 
self. But take such a work as Cogan on the Passions, 
— though it is a rather dull book, and the author was not 

30 



350 brown's philosophy of mind. 

equal to his task, which abler hands might have wrought 
into a treatise almost unequalled in interest and utility, 

— we think that any common man who reads this book 
will become wiser, better, greater, and happier, and will 
particularly be convinced that every one cannot be his 
own intellectual philosopher. Passion, habit, prejudice, 
wild imagination, unprofitable reverie, wrong directions, 
and mistaken objects of thought, all which, by stealing 
encroachments or violent incursions, may be fast wear- 
ing away the character, are liable to be arrested in their 
progress even by a prosing treatise, which shall subject 
them to a cool analysis, and make the mind familiar 
with comprehensive descriptions and classifications of 
them. 

We feel justified, on the whole, in laying down the 
following general results, which may be expected from 
good treatises on mental philosophy. Not to enumerate 
several advantages of comparatively subordinate value, 

— such as the mental discipline acquired by the prosecu- 
tion of the study itself, the very dignity of the subject as 
a theme of speculation, the accession of a mere appropri- 
ate ornament, if nothing more, to a well-furnished mind, 
and the like, — ihe first unquestionably great advantage 
is, to make us reflect upon and feel habitually conscious 
of our powers ; a state of mind which necessarily pre- 
cedes all wise and energetic action. The second good 
result proceeding from this study is, that philosophical 
self-examination smooths the way directly to moral self- 
examination, which is the nurse of virtue. A third effect 
is to excite sentiments of piety by the contemplation of 
the most excellent and wonderful of the known works of 
God. 



brown's philosophy of mind. 351 

Such, we maintain, are the general tendencies of this 
study. But it may be objected, that these are too indefi- 
nite and intangible, being subjects rather of speculation 
than of clear demonstration. We may be asked to 
point out the express and particular achievements of the 
science of the mind, and to enumerate any newly dis- 
covered intellectual instruments, so to speak, which have 
visibly blessed and gladdened the prospects of the spe- 
cies, like the mariner's compass, the chronometer, the 
safety-lamp, the vaccine virus, the steam-engine ; or 
any which have given new power and stimulus to scien- 
tific researches, like some of Newton's theorems, the gal- 
vanic battery, or the blowpipe. The Inductive Method 
of Lord Bacon will, of course, suggest itself here to 
every reader at all acquainted with our subject; and in- 
tellectual philosophers, with the author before us among 
the number, claim for it the magnificent merit of intro- 
ducing a revolution not only in their own science, but in 
every other, and of almost changing the face of the mod- 
ern earth. But to be candid, we must make a distinc- 
tion between the inductive method itself, and Bacon's 
verbal interpretation and proclamation of it. It is the 
interpretation and proclamation only that truly belong 
to the science of the mind ; the method itself has been 
more or less operative in all men from time immemorial. 
It did not depend on a promulgation by Bacon or any 
one else, whether a right mode of reasoning and philoso- 
phizing should, in spite of ancient trammels, occasionally 
force itself upon inquisitive and strong understandings. 
Did Locke and Davy, — names which we select to rep- 
resent improvements in the two departments of intel- 
lectual and physical science, — did they rely on a di- 



352 brown's philosophy of mind. 

vulged and explicit statute of Lord Bacon for the char- 
acter and success of their researches ? No more, we 
apprehend, than Napoleon fought his way to empire 
under the influence of a formula. 

In making, however, this large concession, or rather, in 
drawing this due distinction, we are by no means dis- 
posed either to depreciate the actual merit of Lord Ba- 
con's rule, or to disavow the past unequivocal successes 
of the branch of science in question, or to abandon our 
hopes of its future indefinite triumphs. Much, certainly, 
was gained by embodying the inductive method in a 
preceptive frame, and so suggesting and recommend- 
ing it to the world. If an earlier start along the true 
path of science was hereby given to men than they 
would otherwise have taken, and if, by the same means, 
an incalculable expenditure of time and talents has in 
many cases been saved, these are achievements which 
certainly belong to the science of the mind. For we 
scarcely need contend, that the investigation and laying 
down of precepts for the prosecution of general science 
strictly constitutes one department of intellectual phi- 
losophy. 

But, to take our stand on still more unquestionable 
ground: supposing all that has been written and said 
about the principle of Association of Ideas had been 
suppressed from the very first, and that men had been 
left to avail themselves of that principle only as nature 
prompted and experience dictated, can it be conceived, 
that every individual in the world at this moment would 
have been equally wise and skilful, equally happy and 
virtuous ? On the contrary, has not the specification 
and description of this element of our minds, and the 



brown's philosophy of mind. 353 

perpetual pressing of its existence and uses upon the 
attention of men, caused it to become a more constant, 
systematic, and efficient instrument of thought and prac- 
tice? Of two orators, in other respects equal, which 
should we most confidently select for the management of 
a cause, — one who has been taught the doctrine of as- 
sociation in all its known relations and effects, or one 
who only instinctively and unconsciously acts upon it ? 
To us there seems a vast accession of power and re- 
sources placed at the disposal of the former. Our own 
convictions are both deliberate and strong, that in the 
whole body of literature and mental effort at the present 
day, comprehending alike the speculations of the labored 
and formal volume, the pulpit, bar, legislative hall, peri- 
odical press, ephemeral paragraph, conversation, and soli- 
tary thought, no contemptible degree of whatever deep 
research, true sentiment, accurate rhetoric, and just rea- 
soning are found to prevail, owes its origin, more or less 
directly, to the influence of what has been said and incul- 
cated respecting right methods of ratiocination, and re- 
specting the proper application of the associating prin- 
ciple. 

Who can doubt that individual virtue has been 
strengthened, and individual happiness increased, by a 
scientific acquaintance with the principle of association ? 
"When gloomy thoughts overshadow and oppress his 
soul, the well-educated man, who happily has not neg- 
lected the science of the mind, recollects what has come 
to him from books, and the lecture-room, concerning con- 
tinued trains of ideas, and the power of the associating 
principle. He therefore seizes the assistance of this in- 
tellectual instrument to lead his attention towards bright- 

30* 



354 brown's PfilLOSOPfiY OF MINC. 

er objects of contemplation, and thus to dissipate his 
gloom. And this he does with much more confidence 
and effect than the untutored son of sorrow, who, unac- 
quainted with the whole nature and extent of the blessed 
power within him, makes perhaps, or perhaps not, a few 
faint, instinctive efforts to turn the train of his ideas and 
feelings, but soon again desperately yields up his soul to 
its fixed and haunting agony. 

We rejoice to believe that the science we are recom- 
mending is frequently found instrumental also in purify- 
ing the current of thought, as well as recalling it to its 
proper channels ; that it assists in eluding the sugges- 
tions of temptation, in controlling a wayward imagina- 
tion, in analyzing and dissolving prejudices; and that it 
produces many other similar effects, favorable to virtue 
and happiness, w'hich would have arisen less certainly 
and systematically, had the power of the associating 
principle been left to its own spontaneous operations, 
unaffected by former scientific speculations, and unaided 
by the cultivated habit of self-inspection. 

The very nature of the thing, we confess, forbids us to 
point out, ocularly, the influence of these intellectual in- 
struments acting on the minds of men, as one may show 
the compass in the binnacle, virtually influencing every 
motion of a ship, and guiding her safely through difficul- 
ties and dangers. All that we can do is, to throw out 
our suggestions and the results of our own experience 
for what they are worth, and leave them to elicit the 
conviction or dissent of our readers, according to their 
views, experience, and modes of thinking. But if there 
be any truth in the preceding reflections, the claims of 
intellectual philosophy are vindicated, and she can boast 



buown's fsilosophy of mind. 355 

of her specific instruments, that wield as prodigious a 
power, and are capable of conferring as exhaustless bene- 
fits, as certain more tangible discoveries in the sister 
department of natural philosophy. Observe, we are 
careful not to claim for this science the principle of asso- 
ciation itself, any more than the principle of reasoning, 
or of memory, or of imagination. It is only the formal 
recognition, the verbal statement, the didactic exposi- 
tion, of these principles, which we understand here by 
intellectual instruments, and for the positively benefi- 
cial influences of which we are taking the trouble to 
contend. 

The topical system of the ancients was such an intel- 
lectual instrument as has been demanded of mental 
philosophy, and nearly as palpable as the safety-lamp. 
The discovery of it strictly belonged to the genuine sci- 
ence of the mind. The art of Mnemonics may be at 
present only in its infancy. We hold the expectation 
of new discoveries and methods in this branch of learn- 
ing to be as reasonable as to look for farther knowledge 
on the subjects of light and heat. For instance, as an 
humble example, has a general rule been yet laid down, 
apportioning the quantity of anything to be committed 
to memory to the number of times necessary to repeat 
it, so as to introduce the greatest possible economy of 
time and labor ? If a half-page of letter-press requires to 
be only six times read over in order to be well fixed in 
the memory, and a whole page seven times, it is mani- 
festly better to divide the task of a whole page into two 
portions, and thus to save one reading. If, again, a quar- 
ter of a page only requires to be repeated five times, a 
further economy may be obtained by dividing the task 



356 brown's philosophy of mind. 

into four portions. It is evident, however, that these 
divisions may be continued so far as to frustrate the pur- 
pose of them ; for if the page be broken up into portions 
so small as one line each, although each portion could be 
well remembered at one reading, yet the whole page must 
be read over seven times as at first, and a loss is thus 
incurred by carrying the divisions too far. But where is 
the point at which the divisions may cease, and still 
allow the smallest possible number of repetitions ? Now 
a few patient and attentive experiments and calcula- 
tions, upon a memory of average strength and quickness, 
might conduct an inquirer to some result or formula on 
this subject, which should prove as useful to the world 
as a new algebraic expression in the general doctrine of 
chances. Who will pretend to limit the possible multi- 
plication of such facts and rules of every kind, connected 
with all our mental operations ? The time may come 
when a Grammar or Accidence of the Mind shall be put 
into the hands of youth, on a very extended and im- 
proved plan, like that of some of our easy systems of 
logic, which shall reveal to the opening intellect the ex- 
tent of its powers, and early teach it the adroit and per- 
fect use of itself, far beyond what is now practised or 
conjectured by the most accomplished and experienced 
men. Should it be incredulously asked, if such things 
can be expected at this late period of the world, we would 
inquire in return, how long, on the one hand, the species 
may yet hope to exist, and, on the other, how long the 
circulation of the blood has been discovered. 

A complete system of intellectual philosophy, in all its 
abstract perfection, necessarily cannot be executed until 
the full extent of the human powers has been tried in 



beown's philosophy of mind. 357 

every art and every science that can possibly develop 
and employ them. Such a period, it is true, stands at 
an indefinite distance. But still the remark illustrates 
and strengthens our position at the outset of this article, 
that the science of the mind is destined to become the 
most advanced in rank of all. Approximations to its 
ideal completeness can be made from time to time, as 
the mind of man exhibits new achievements and ca- 
pacities to serve as materials for this last and highest 
branch of knowledge. When the mathematician has 
exhausted his skill in numerical combination, and has 
invented methods by which even the relations of infinite 
quantities can be managed to his purposes, the philoso- 
pher of the mind steps in, looks at the point which has 
been reached, and records it on some page of the intel- 
lectual system. When the natural philosopher has made 
every possible experiment on matter, has investigated 
the affinities of atoms, or taken the weight of worlds, 
or systematized the laws of motion, or measured the 
long journey of a ray of light from some outer system 
of the universe, or examined the different properties of 
opposite sides of that ray, or searched for the lines 
which divide organized from inorganic substance, and 
sentient from sluggish life, then the intellectual phi- 
losopher comes up to revise the task of his inde- 
fatigable agent and forerunner, marking wherein he 
has triumphed, or wherein he has been baffled, and 
notes down on the tablet of his own science the strength 
and the weakness of the human intellect. When the 
poet, the orator, the scholar, the reasoner, the histo- 
rian, the painter, the musician, the sculptor, the archi- 
tect, with the laborers in every other kindred art or 



358 brown's philosophy of mind. 

pursuit, have exhausted their powers in affecting the 
souls of men, now moving them with transports of de- 
light, now stimulating and correcting the progress of 
thought, now impressing a new character on whole gen- 
erations, and guiding them to new courses of action, the 
mental philosopher fails not, with observant eye, to fol- 
low these varied achievements, and transfers them to his 
chapter of the influences of mind upon mind. It is 
equally a branch of his vocation to watch the spontaneous 
movements of individual and collective man ; to trace 
the changes of opinion, custom, character; to observe 
what is universally pleasing or displeasing ; in short, to 
note and record the operations and affections of the gen- 
eral mind. When hundreds of solitary thinkers have 
turned their attention inward to survey the operations 
of their own individual intellect compared with what 
they know of others, and have classified, as well as the 
evanescent and impalpable nature of the subject will 
permit, those laws of thought and emotion that may be 
gathered from their combined internal experience and 
foreign observation, at length some master-philosopher 
of the mind avails himself of the labors of his predeces- 
sors, and employs their recorded results to mould into a 
new frame and aspect this keystone of the sciences. 
When sciences, which are now unthought of, shall arise 
and be carried to perfection, calling forth mental powers 
as yet unexerted and unknown, and when perhaps new 
combinations and exhibitions of moral excellence shall 
brighten the face of society, the faithful philosopher of 
the intellect will stand ready to arrange these freshly cre- 
ated materials in his ever-growing system. Thus, the 
Science of the Mind, though susceptible of perpetual ad- 



brown's philosophy of mind. 359 

vances, must necessarily be the last to arrive at perfec- 
tion. Its materials are drawn from all the other sci- 
ences. It is waiting to see what man can do and 
suffer, for its own business is to record and classify 
it. We cannot conceive of the final step of its march 
on earth ; its present incipient existence thus constitut- 
ing a new proof of a future state of being. Like 
the leading and essential virtue of Christianity, it never 
faileth, not even when prophecies fail, and tongues 
cease, and subordinate systems of knowledge vanish 
away. 

It is high time to cease confounding the science of the 
mind with Metaphysics. This word, by common use, 
has now imperceptibly acquired a new signification, no 
longer to be found in the dictionaries, and no longer ex- 
pressive of a distinct science. We will try to explain 
and fix its present general acceptation. Metaphysics has 
come to mean something imaginative and hypothetic. 
It ascribes imaginary and plausible causes to existing 
appearances, and speculates upon the nature of what is 
hidden and unknown. We would distinguish it from 
Philosophy, inasmuch as philosophy ascertains the causes 
of phenomena, and learns from experience the properties 
of things. Metaphysics will be found to enter more or 
less into every department of learning. When Newton 
discovered and applied the law of gravitation, he was, 
strictly speaking, the philosopher. W^hen he ascribed 
that gravitation to the influence of a subtile, ethereal 
fluid, pervading all bodies, (though the theory almost 
prophetically accorded with some things which we now 
know respecting electricity,) he was only the metaphysi- 
cian. When Haiiy unfolded the mechanical composi- 



360 brown's philosophy of mind. 

tion of crystals, and even demonstrated the necessary 
forms of their ultimate particles, he acted the part of a 
philosopher; but in attempting to account for the trans- 
mission of light through them, one might theorize ever 
so plausibly, and still be nothing more than a metaphy- 
sician. When Locke divided our ideas into those of 
sensation and reflection, although his division might 
have been incomplete, or even redundant, yet, being a 
classification of known phenomena, it was perfectly 
philosophical. But when he accounted for our sensa- 
tions of different colors by the emission of differently 
shaped atoms from the surfaces of bodies, he was meta- 
physical. 

Philosophy reasons rightly from right data ; the rea- 
soning, or the data, or both, of metaphysics, may be 
either right or wrong. A spice of metaphysics in a 
man's mind is a very good thing; in some writers, a 
slight mixture of it has made many an author popular. 
It flatters the reader's ow^n consciousness of being pro- 
found, and it stimulates his imagination to ascribe un- 
common resources to the writer. Most men of genius 
have somewhat of the metaphysical characteristic. It is 
the pioneer to discoveries of unknown relations among 
things. To improve any science, or to break into any 
original track of thought, one must have some tendency 
towards this quality. All the great chemists we ever 
heard of have been endued with the metaphysical impe- 
tus. It is conjecture, and fancy, and refined curiosity, 
which prompt them to experiment, and it is not until they 
confirm by fact even the most sagacious of their conjec- 
tures, that they are honored with the name of philoso- 
X)hers. The science of electricity, if w^e may strictly call 



brown's philosophy op mind. 361 

it science, is at this moment half philosophy and half 
metaphysics. The doctrine of the mind was once almost 
entirely metaphysics, and rightly bore that name, which 
it still doubtfully bears, though very much purified from 
the admixture. Aristotle, however, mingled a good deal 
of philosophy with his speculation. His followers, and 
the schools of later date, made the science nearly all 
metaphysics again. Des Cartes and Malebranche be- 
gan to restore it to its proper balance, but were still too 
inveterate metaphysicians to produce the requisite equi- 
librium. Locke combined the metaphysical and the 
philosophical attributes to an enviable degree. Hence 
the improvements which are dated from him. His fol- 
lowers of the French school, together with Berkeley 
and Hume, Hartley and Priestley, made very few real 
advances, in consequence of the undue preponderance of 
metaphysics in their speculations. 

The Scotch school, so called, vibrated with too forcible 
a reaction to the opposite extreme. Reid and Stewart 
were great philosophers, and it is impossible to rise from 
the study of their works without large improvement and 
gratitude ; and nature undoubtedly formed them to be 
also great metaphysicians. They wanted not invention, 
wing, or acumen. But they fastidiously and conscien- 
tiously folded up their excursive powers, or only opened 
them to brood over the chaos in which the science of the 
mind lay darkening beneath them. They struck out 
from the mass no brilliant revolving orb. This pecu- 
liarity, we apprehend, is the cause of a considerable de- 
pression of their original reputation, and has emboldened 
the critics to intrude upon Mr. Stewart's weary and hon- 
orable retreat, with asking what he has done. An insa- 

31 



362 brown's philosophy of mind. 

tiable world is not content with seeing the old cumbrous 
rubbish removed from the path of science, though the 
labor is performed, like that of Virgil's swain, in never so 
elegant a manner. To the disappointment experienced 
with regard to the Scotch school of mental philosophers, 
from whom so much was expected, and who were sup- 
posed to be making a last grand experiment, we ascribe 
the unmerited neglect which has been shown towards the 
works of the late Dr. Brown. But it is a neglect which 
arose from mere error and misapprehension ; for he cer- 
tainly had the happiness of combining the genius of the 
severest inductive philosophy with an adventurous meta- 
physical spirit, which Bacon himself neither by precept nor 
example condemned. We trust to make all this plainly 
appear by the following examination of his Lectures on 
the Philosophy of the Human Mind, although, as will be 
seen, we shall frequently find occasion to dissent from 
the author's positions. We are persuaded that his repu- 
tation as a writer is yet to advance among the votaries 
of true philosophy. 

According to the extensive scope of the views of Dr. 
Brown, the Philosophy of the Human Mind compre- 
hends the following subjects. 

I. Mental Physiology. 

II. General Ethics. 

III. Politics. 

IV. Natural Theology. 

We will proceed to unfold, in the first place, the au- 
thor's favorite science of Mental Physiology. 

The object of all physical inquiry is twofold. We 
either attempt to ascertain the constituent coexisting 
elements of substances, as we find them at any given 



brown's philosophy op mind. 363 

moment, and as they compose an apparently continuous 
whole, or we consider them as the subjects, or as the 
agents, of those changes which constitute the physical 
events of the system of the world. What is this piece of 
glass ? If we consider it merely as a continuous whole, 
our answer will be, that it is a compound of alkaline and 
siliceous matter. But if we consider it as the agent or 
the subject of changes, we speak of its refractive powers, 
its fusibility at a certain temperature, its resistance to 
solution by the common powerful acids, and the like. 
In short, we consider the substances into the nature of 
which we inquire in these two lights alone, as they 
exist in space, or as they exist in time. 

The foregoing views are applied by the author to the 
physiology of the mind. We know the essential sub- 
stance neither of matter nor of mind ; but the author 
maintains that the phenomena of thought and feeling 
have the same relation to the unknown internal essence 
of the substance mind, which a brittle or a fusible state 
has to that of the substance glass, or which any sensible 
properties whatever have to that of the substance in 
which they inhere. All these various phenomena of 
thought and feeling he regards as nothing more than 
modifications, or affections, or states of the mind, which 
is a simple, uniform principle. They may be complex, 
like the properties of matter, and so be susceptible of 
analysis, or they may be the agents and the subjects of 
innumerable changes among each other, and so sustain 
the reciprocal relation of causes and effects. 

In conformity to these statements, the author pro- 
poses, in the first place, to institute a strict mental anal- 
ysis, a department of philosophy which, he complains, 



364 brown's philosophy of mind. 

has hitherto been much neglected. Some of our mental 
phenomena are evidently simple, as the feeling of pain, 
the sensation of color, and that of sound. Others again 
are complex, or composed of different simple states of the 
mind, as we shall soon see to be the case with Appetite, 
and other feelings. What the chemist does in matter, 
the intellectual analyst does in mind. His object is to 
develop the elements of any complex sentiment or emo- 
tion, and to show that it virtually bears the same relation 
of seeming comprehensiveness to those several elements, 
that is borne by a piece of glass to the various separate 
constituents to which it is reduced by the chemist. 

In commencing his introspective analysis. Dr. Brown 
seizes hold of Memory as the handle and instrument of 
all his inquiries. On this faculty itself he scarcely be- 
stows either definition, description, or analysis. He as- 
sumes it at once as the ^o? ttov arco of his whole sys- 
tem. Let us then for the present grant him memory, if 
by this single mystery he promises to solve all other 
mysteries. 

The first fortress of old error against which he marches, 
with this simple talisman, is Consciousness. He attacks 
this first, since all the varieties of those ever-changing 
feelings which form the subjects of his inquiry are re- 
ferred to it. He maintains that it is no distinct power 
of the mind, as it has always been supposed to be. He 
rigorously denies that at one and the same moment you 
can have a sensation or an idea, and also a separate 
simultaneous feeling of consciousness about it. • In the 
very next instant after the sensation or the idea, however, 
you have the memory of it. With the memory, more- 
over, you have an intuitive belief, that you, who just 



brown's philosophy of mind. 365 

now had the sensation or idea, are the same individual 
being who have the remembrance of it now. Thus, be- 
tween the sensation itself, the remembrance of it, and 
the intuitive belief of personal identity, away slips Con- 
sciousness into thin air I 

On the subject of personal identity Dr. Brown most 
admirably argues, that no process of reasoning can ever 
demonstrate it, because the very essence of every argu- 
ment consists in the circumstance, that the mind which 
adopts the conclusion irresistibly believes itself to be the 
same mind which held the premises. Thus this belief 
rises above all argument, or rather is the foundation of 
every reasoning process. It follows directly, that, since 
no argument can proceed a step without it, the belief 
itself is intuitive and axiomatic. 

We have thus far considered only the phenomena of 
the mind in general ; consciousness and personal identity 
evidently involving all states of the mind alike. The 
author now proceeds to consider them in the separate 
classes in which they may be arranged. Dismissing as 
incomplete and inaccurate all former arrangements of 
them into powers of the understanding and of the will, 
and into intellectual and active powers, and so forth, he 
proceeds to a new distribution. The following remarks 
on this design appear to us very just, and constitute at 
once a powerful recommendation of the author's labors, 
as well as justification of our own humble efforts in re- 
porting them. 

" A new classification, therefore, which includes, in its generic 
character, those qualities, [which former classifications have neg- 
lected,] will of course draw to them attention, which they could 
not otherwise have obtained ; and the more various the views 

31* 



366 brown's philosophy of mind. 

are which we take of the objects of any science, the juster conse- 
quently, because the more equal, will be the estimate which we 
form of them. So truly is this the case, that I am convinced, 
that no one has ever read over the mere terms of a new division 
in a science, however familiar the science may have been to him, 
without learning more than this new division itself, — without 
being struck with some property or relation, the importance of 
which he now perceives most clearly, and which he is quite 
astonished that he should have overlooked so long before." — 
Led. XVI. 

The following is the principle of the author's new 
classification. 

The causes or immediate antecedents of the various 
mental phenomena are either foreign to the mind, or 
they belong to the mind itself. A change of mental 
state is either produced by a change in our bodily or- 
gans, or, without any cause external to itself, one state 
of mind is the immediate result of a former state of mind, 
in consequence of those laws of succession of thoughts 
and feelings which were established by the Creator him- 
self. 

In conformity with this distinction, he makes his first 
division of the phenomena of the mind, into its external 
and internal affections. The class of internal affections, 
by far the more copious and various of the two, he sub- 
divides into two great orders, our intellectual states, and 
our emotions. 

We have sensations or perceptions of the objects that 
affect our bodily organs; these he terms the sensitive or 
external affections of the mind. Then again we remem- 
ber objects, we imagine them in new situations, we com- 
pare their relations ; these he terms the intellectual states 



brown's philosophy of mind. 367 

of the mind. Once more, we are moved with certain 
lively feelings, on the consideration of what we thus 
perceive, or remember, or imagine, or compare ; with 
feelings, for example, of beauty, or sublimity, or aston- 
ishment, or love, or hate, or hope, or fear. These, and 
various other vivid feelings analogous to them, are our 
emotions. 

Under the external affections of the mind, the author 
comprehends not only all those phenomena, or states of 
mind, which are commonly termed Sensations, but also 
all our internal organic feelings of pleasure or pain, that 
arise from states of the nervous system, as much as 
our other sensations. Many of these are commonly 
ranked under another head, that of Appetites, such as 
hunger, thirst, the desire of repose, or of change of mus- 
cular position, which follows long-continued exertion, 
the oppressive anxiety which arises from impeded res- 
piration, and various other diseases, the effect of bodily 
uneasiness. And here occurs a characteristic instance 
of our author's peculiar powers of abstract analysis ; an 
instance, if we mistake not, equally acute with that 
which before attempted the resolution of the supposed 
power of consciousness, and more luminously convincing. 
These Appetites, he says, evidently admit of being an- 
alyzed into two distinct elements, a pain of a peculiar 
species, and a subsequent desire of that which is to re- 
lieve the pain ; — states of mind of which one may im- 
mediately succeed the other, but which are, unquestion- 
ably, as different in themselves, as if no such succession 
took place. The pain, which is one element of the ap- 
petite, is an external affection of the mind, to be classed 
with our other sensations; the succeeding desire, which 



368 brown's philosophy of mind. 

is another element of it, is an internal affection of the 
mind, to be classed with om* other emotions of desbe. 
The truth is, we give one name to the combination of 
the two feelings, in consequence of their being so univer- 
sally and immediately successive. Still, in every case, 
the pain is felt before the desire of relief is felt, and two 
states of mind manifestly compose w^hat an imperfect 
analysis has hitherto presumed to be but one. All imagi- 
nable objections to these views the author arrays and 
removes, and we recommend the whole of these specula- 
tions (Lecture XVII.) as one of the most delightful por- 
tions of his Lectures. 

Besides those particular feelings of bodily uneasiness, 
which, as attended by desire, constitute our Appetites, 
there are other affections of the same class, which, though 
not usually ranked with our external sensations or per- 
ceptions, because we find it difficult to ascribe them to 
any local organ, are unquestionably to be arranged under 
the same head ; since they are feelings which arise as 
immediately and directly from a certain state of a part 
of the nervous system, as any of the feelings which we 
more commonly ascribe to external sense. Of this kind 
is that muscular pleasure of alacrity and action, which 
forms so great a part of the delight of the young of 
every species of living beings; and which is felt, though 
in a less degree, at every period of life, even the most 
advanced ; or which, when it ceases in age, only gives 
place to another species of muscular pleasure, — that 
which constitutes the pleasure of ease, — the same spe- 
cies of feeling which doubles to every one the delight 
of exercise, by sweetening the repose to which it leads, 
and thus making it indirectly as well as directly a source 
of enjoyment. 



brown's philosophy of mind. 369 

With respect, further, to our muscular feelings, the 
author observes, that, though many of them may be al- 
most unnoticed by us during the influence of stronger 
sensations, they are yet sufficiently powerful, when we 
attend to them, to render us, independently of sight and 
touch, in a great measure sensible of the position of our 
body in general, and of its various parts; and, compara- 
tively indistinct as they are, they become in many cases, 
(as in the acquired perceptions of vision, for example, 
and equally too in various other instances, in which lit- 
tle attention has been paid to them by philosophers,) 
elements of some of the nicest and most accurate judg- 
ments which we form. 

On the whole, although our author does not formally 
lay down a sixth sense in addition to the ancient enu- 
meration, he certainly presents some very strong consid- 
erations in favor of ranking our Muscular Feelings as a 
distinct, peculiar, and independent order of sensations. 

The pains of appetite, our muscular feelings, and all 
other mental states of this class, the author appropriately 
denominates, in his system, the Less Definite External 
Affections of Mind. 

Having treated of these, he proceeds to what he ranks 
as the More Definite External Affections of Mind, which 
comprehend the feelings more commonly termed Sensa- 
tions, and universally ascribed to five particular organs 
of sense. 

On this subject our author transfers the celebrated 
theory of Berkeley, as to our acquired perceptions of vis- 
ion, to the information given us by our other senses. In 
the case of sound, there is a very evident analogy to our 
acquired visual perceptions; since a constant reference 



370 brown's philosophy of mind. 

to place mingles with our sensations of this class, in the 
same manner, though not so distinctly, as in our percep- 
tions of sight. We perceive the sound, as it were, near 
or at a distance, in one direction rather than in another. 
But what should originally inform the infant that the 
voice he hears in the next room is nearer than the voice 
which sounds to him from the distance of five hundred 
feet? Experience, derived from his other senses, alone 
teaches him, in process of time, to judge with imme- 
diate and unfailing precision. The other senses the 
author also holds to be more or less under the same in- 
fluence. 

Respecting the corporeal part of the process of Percep- 
tion, all that is known of it, the author acknowledges, is, 
that certain affections of the nervous system, including 
the brain, precede immediately certain affections of the 
mind. As to the nature of the connection between these 
antecedents and consequents, he thinks it never will be 
ascertained, and he dismisses the consideration altogeth- 
er from his philosophy. The various specific affections 
of the nervous system, as it is spread from the brain to 
all the organs of sense, and indeed through every part of 
the body, are known ; the various and corresponding 
affections of the mind, which follow them, are also 
known. With these facts taken for granted, the author 
proceeds in his task of analyzing these complicated, or- 
ganic and corresponding mental, affections, and discov- 
ering and estimating the whole degree and body of 
knowledge (together with the intricate and often fugitive 
process of acquiring it) which they furnish of the Exter- 
nal World, — in which external world he includes even 
our organs of sense themselves. 



brown's philosophy of mind. 371 

He argues at great length, that our five senses alone 
are in themselves insufficient to give us any knowledge 
or belief of an external world of matter. Injustice to him, 
let it be borne in mind that he lays down the essential 
and constituent elements of our idea of matter to be only 
two, namely, Resistance and Extension. Sight, sound, 
smell, taste, touch, meaning by touch only the sensation 
connected with the superficial exterior integument that 
surrounds the muscular system, he contends, are nothing 
more than states of mind, which we might experience 
for ever, without thinking of ascribing them to anything 
foreign from ourselves, in like manner as we never 
ascribe any of our internal joys or sorrows to an external 
cause. Whence, then, do we obtain our notion of some- 
thing out of ourselves, and whence do we obtain a 
knowledge of matter? All our information on these 
points he would derive, originally, from our Muscular 
Feelings alone. With the experience gained from these 
muscular feelings, the operations of the five senses are 
so perpetually, universally, and intimately associated, as 
to make the senses appear the original sources of the 
knowledge in question. We decline going over the 
grounds on which Dr. Brown undertakes to remove the 
delusion, attacking each sense by itself, particularly that 
of simple touch, and stripping them all of their long as- 
serted and allowed pretensions on this score. 

But though we are so indulgent as to spare our read- 
ers this merely preparatory discussion, they need not 
think to resist, while we lead them, as we now shall do, 
into the very central labyrinth of the speculations of our 
metaphysical Daedalus. Assuming that he has proved 
the senses to have no original concern in conveying to 



372 brown's philosophy of mind. 

us the idea of an external world, he transfers at once the 
seat of discussion to the very region of the muscles them- 
selves, leaving the five senses far behind, in the custody 
of Aristotle, Mr. Locke, Dr. Reid, and the rest of the 
whole body of his pondering predecessors. With a spe- 
cies of indagation altogether characteristic of himself, or, 
we might say, of himself and Dr. Darwin, he carries us 
back to the first semi-instinctive movements of an in- 
fant's muscles. He watches its repeatedly and gradually 
opening and closing fingers, until a solid body is inter- 
posed within its little grasp, which impedes the accus- 
tomed muscular contractions. It is now that the infant 
acquires, as our author maintains, the first real and origi- 
nal notion of " outness," of something foreign to himself, 
of something which is not himself. Those petty muscu- 
lar motions he feels to be all his own ; but the moment 
that resistance to them takes place, he ascribes the new 
sensation to a foreign cause. 

Here we pause to interpose a stricture. Dr. Brown 
appears to us not to have carried his analysis quite far 
enough to be perfectly consistent with himself. If an 
interruption of the child's muscular motions is sufficient 
to give it a notion of outness, why, for a like reason, is not 
an interruption of its gazing on a bright object sufficient 
to give it the same notion ? But this the author will not 
allow ; since, as we have seen, he denies that from mere 
sight alone we can acquire the least belief or idea of an 
external world. Now, he has not told us what there is 
peculiar to the child's muscular feelings, the interruption 
of which should draw its thoughts out of itself, more than 
an interruption of the exercise of its visual faculties. He 
does indeed in one place, we believe, obscurely hint, that, 



brown's philosophy op mind. 373 

as the muscular motions of the child originate from him- 
self, and continue by his own will, whereas the sight of 
the bright object comes without any effort on his part, 
continues without his volition, and is withdrawn without 
resisting his will at all, this difference between the two 
kinds of interruption is sufficient to account, in the for- 
mer case, for the child's having a notion of something 
foreign from himself, while in the other there is nothing 
more than a mere succession of natural feelings or states 
passing through his mind. But the author neither places 
much emphasis on this distinction, nor brings it forward 
frequently, which he w^ould certainly have done had he 
relied much on it. Nor are we willing to admit it as a 
sufficient explanation of the difficulty in question. For 
aught we can discern, the child's muscular motion may 
be stopped, and even his will resisted, and yet the feel- 
ings resulting from such interruptions shall still be noth- 
ing more than so many simple states of mind succeeding 
one another, like phantasmagoric pictures, without the 
necessity of his referring them to anything abroad. 

How, then, shall this chasm be filled up in our author's 
investigation ? We would say thus. The child, we ap- 
prehend, never begins to adopt the belief of anything 
external to himself until he perceives that some accus- 
tomed object of gratification is out of his immediate 
reach, and requires him to originate a voluntary locomo- 
tion in order to recover it. Indeed, all that can be un- 
derstood of an external world, at any period of our lives, 
is simply that which we cannot reach, and over which we 
can have no control, except by moving the body or the 
hand from its usual position. We allow, with our author, 
that muscular pressure gives even to the almost new-born 

32 



374 brown's philosophy of mind. 

infant a perfect notion of one element of our complex 
idea of matter, that is, Resistance. But we think Dr. 
Brown should not so gratuitously have coupled the no- 
tion of Outness with that of Resistance. The former we 
conceive to be attained even not until long after the idea 
of Extension, the other element of our idea of matter, is 
attained. We conceive our author to be thus misled in 
the very way against which he is constantly guarding 
his readers, and to be betrayed into that defective analy- 
sis which he complains of in former philosophers. In 
subsequent life, the perpetual and close connection be- 
tween our ideas of something resisting and of something 
external has induced him to suppose that they both spring 
up together in the infant's mind. But we have learned 
in his own school to question our teacher, and to dis- 
cern another source of the peculiar notion in question. 

The etymological meaning of the word external^ and 
indeed every meaning which is ever attached to it, im- 
plies a change or difference of place. As long as the 
child is locally at rest, sensations of a thousand varieties, 
" states of mind" both internal and external, may throng 
upon him in successive waves, and yet all appear to be 
as much parts of himself as any spontaneous pain or 
pleasure within. No matter whether it be a smell, or a 
sight, or a sound, or a feeling of resistance, or a thwart- 
ing of his will, or any other feeling which begins and 
terminates at or in himself; we regard all these feelings 
as exactly on the same level with respect to the point 
under consideration. But it is the separation of the re- 
sisting and extended object from himself, it is the ivith- 
drawal of something from his power, it is the dropping 
of the rattle out of his hand, it is the removal of the fount 



brown's philosophy of mind. 375 

of infant life from his lips, that reveals to hirn the secret 
of something foreign to himself, and convinces him that 
all existence is not involved in his own, and teaches him 
the first of that long series of lessons, which he is to 
be learning through life, comprehending the whole va- 
riety of local relations in which he stands to outward 
things, from the spoon that moves towards and recedes 
from his mouth, to the remotest star whose distance can 
be scarcely reached even by the imagination. 

But to go back on the track of Dr. Brown. The in- 
fant has now acquired his notion of Resistance. It 
remains to be seen how the other element of our idea 
of matter, namely, the notion of Extension, is obtained 
by this miniature metaphysician. 

The little fingers before mentioned gradually and re- 
peatedly close and open, until the child has a notion of 
the length of time it requires to shut his finger down 
upon the palm of his hand ; meaning by length of time, 
the accustomed succession of different feelings attend- 
ant upon each gradual contraction of the muscle. On 
the interposition of the resisting object, as before de- 
scribed, and the consequent interruption of the muscular 
contraction, the child, according to our author, has a 
notion of the remaining length of time which it would 
have taken for the finger to arrive at the palm of the 
hand. Immediately the interposed object becomes a 
representative of this remaining length of time. If the 
diameter of the object interposed be small, the remain- 
ing length of time will be proportionably small, and 
consequently the infant's notion of the length of the 
interposed object corresponds. If the diameter be large, 
there is a corresponding reverse in the infant's idea, in 



376 brown's philosophy op mind. 

consequence of the larger remaining length of tinae. 
Thus Length, with our author, in its true, original, and 
significant acceptation, indicates only Time, and is trans- 
ferred metaphorically from time to longitudinal exten- 
sion. This doctrine he confirms by a number of reason- 
ings, facts, and experiments. 

Allowing, then, that the infant derives his notion of 
the length of an object from the remaining time which 
that object intercepts, as above described, the next ques- 
tion is as to the origin of his notion of Breadth, which 
is the other element of our author's idea of extension. 
When, after obtaining an idea of a particular length 
from one finger alone, a second closes, or rather the two 
close together, and are interrupted by the same object, 
the infant has an idea of two separate, concurring, co- 
existing lengths. When three, when four, close together, 
he has the idea of three, of four separate, concurring, 
coexisting lengths. And what is this but the idea of 
breadth ? 

Dr. Brown allows that nothing can be more vague, 
indistinct, and imperfect than the earliest notions which 
the child thus acquires of the elements of extension. 
But every instant that he is awake, he is making new 
experiments; his muscles never are at rest ; the imper- 
fection of one experiment is corrected by the next; and, 
particularly, other muscles besides those of the hands 
and fingers are put in motion ; the experiments of the 
arm in every direction extend and confirm those of the 
smaller members, and the mere muscular perceptions 
of the child are thus growing more and more distinct 
and definite every day. 

All these muscular operations and feelings are, by 



1 



brown's philosophy of mind. 377 

the constitution of our frames, so closely connected with 
accompanying tactual sensations, that the latter habitu- 
ally become representatives of the former, and we are 
led to believe that we measure dimensions by Touch 
alone, when it is only a secondary and subordinate in- 
strument in the business. 

We are mistaken if every reader will not concede much 
truth and originality to these speculations, whatever 
may be thought of the accuracy of some of the details, 
and however nearly they may occasionally seem to bor- 
der on the ludicrous. We have no hesitation in ascrib- 
ing new and important discoveries to Dr. Brown, in this 
department of mental physiology. We fear not frankly 
and gratefully to avow our obligations to him for ex- 
tending and enlightening the domain of our knowledge, 
with respect to subjects that must necessarily be near 
and familiar to us through the whole course of life. Let 
any one, after becoming familiar with these speculations 
upon the instrumentality of our muscular system, in 
conveying to us a knowledge of the external world, be- 
take himself to Dr. Reid's '• Inquiry into the Human 
Mind," particularly to his chapter on Touch, and he will 
at once be convinced of the extraordinary meagreness 
of his own former views, and be gratified with the new 
and permanent light which has here been thrown on the 
intellectual economy. 

From these speculations on the manner in which we 
acquire a belief of the external world, a very natural 
transition is made to the theory of Berkeley, who denies 
the existence of matter, and holds the universe to be 
only a combination of ideas. The sceptical systems 
which have been erected on this doctrine owe their 



378 BHOWN'S I'filLOSOPHY OF MIND. 

plausibility to his assumed fundamental error, that idea^ 
can exist separately from the mind. Dr. Brown's sim- 
ple principle, that ideas are nothing more than the mind 
itself existing in certain states, would have saved a 
world of perplexing scepticism and unprofitable contro- 
versy. 

Several lectures are devoted to the refutation of Dr. 
Reid's pretensions, who, as many of our readers know, 
has enjoyed the glory of irrefragably demonstrating the 
existence of an external world against the sceptical rea- 
sonings of Hume and other Pyrrhonists. As to the main 
point of dispute between Dr. Reid and Mr. Hume, our 
author declares it to be entirely imaginary, since the 
sceptic himself, after all his refined reasonings to the 
contrary, allows it to be impossible not to believe in 
an external world, which very proposition is the grand 
artillery that Dr. Reid leads against his opponent with 
so much parade ; both the disputants maintaining with 
equal earnestness, for their own purposes, that the ex- 
istence of an external world can never be proved by 
argument. 

In the course of these discussions, we have another 
instance of the same acute analysis which we have 
already seen exhibited on the subjects of Appetite and 
Consciousness. Dr. Reid had made great use of Per- 
ception, which, with former philosophers, he considered 
a distinct and unique faculty of the mind, that, immedi- 
ately upon sensation taking place, acquaints us with the 
objects without. Dr. Brown proves this to be a cum- 
brous addition to the mental apparatus. The two ele- 
ments to which he reduces this supposed faculty are, 
first, a sensation, and, next, a mere reference by the 



Brown's philosophy of mind. 379 

associating principle to some extended, resisting sub- 
stance, which v/e have before known only by sensation. 
Thus, between sensation and association. Perception 
escapes into impalpable shade ! The author, however, 
allows it to be a convenient term to express the complex 
process above analyzed, but denies that there is any 
such separate and single faculty of the mind. "Whoever 
chooses to see Dr. Reid's fame still farther lowered in 
several particulars, may be amply gratified in consulting 
the relentless pages of our author. 

In analyzing the feelings ascribed to Vision, Dr. 
Brown claims to have made considerable extensions 
and improvements upon the wonderful discoveries of 
Berkeley. That philosopher, together with his successors, 
had confined his demonstrations to the distance and 
magnitude of objects alone. They still thought that we 
perceive the visible figures of bodies by an immediate 
and original shape, that presents itself to the " mind's 
eye " as well as the body's. Our author, however, main- 
tains, that our only immediate sensation in the case is 
that of Color, and nothing more ; color, without even 
extension. This color is by long and varied experience 
intimately associated with our tactual and muscular 
feelings of extension and figure, and therefore suggests 
them. It is true the rays of light form images on the 
retina; and so do odorous particles from a small flower 
undoubtedly form a distinct figure as they reach the ol- 
factory organ. But the author maintains, that in neither 
case does the mind immediately perceive the figure of 
the external object. He also exhibits many incongruities 
and inconsistencies involved in the common belief, and 
we recommend his twenty-ninth Lecture, in which these 



380 brown's philosophy op mind. 

speculations occur, as a rare piece of delectably hard read- 
ing, and of ingenious and staggering argumentation. 

We have now exhibited a sketch of our author's re- 
marks on the class of our External Affections of the 
Mind considered simply. But it is not always simply 
that they exist. They often occur in combination with 
other feelings. It is therefore to these complex states 
of the mind that he next proceeds. 

He applies his penetrating analysis here to Attention, 
which has been supposed to be a separate and simple 
faculty of the mind. This too dissolves at the touch of 
his w^and. What is Attention ? It is but a continued 
desire to know more vividly and distinctly than be- 
fore any objects of our perception, accompanied always 
by such a voluntary, fixed contraction of the requisite 
muscles, as shall enable the object to act with the 
greatest power on whatever sense we are employing. 
Now, Desire is only one of the simple emotions of the 
mind. The author lays it down as an ultimate law of 
our mental constitution, that all our emotions tend to 
give the objects of perception an increased vividness and 
distinctness. And it is to this law, therefore, that he 
traces the peculiar effects of what is called Attention in 
making objects more vivid and distinct. But between 
the desire, which is a common and well-known emotion 
of the mind, and the consequent muscular contraction, 
w^hich is an affection of the body, what becomes of the 
unique faculty of Attention ? It is not, as has always 
been supposed, a simple mental state, but a process or 
a combination of feelings. 

Here closes the consideration of the External Affec- 
tions of the Mind. Next in order of discussion follow 



brown's philosophy of mind. 381 

the Internal Affections. These were before subdivided 
into Intellectual States, and Emotions. 

The Intellectual States are reduced into two classes, 
the Phenomena of Simple Suggestion, and the Phenom- 
ena of Relative Suggestion. 

By Simple Suggestion is meant the readiness of cer- 
tain feelings or conceptions to arise, after certain other 
feelings or conceptions, in trains of longer or shorter con- 
tinuance. Thus a house suggests the person who lives 
in it ; that person suggests the profession that he fol- 
lows ; the profession suggests a multitude of men ; the 
multitude suggests a whole country ; the country the 
government, and so forth. Such a train of indefinite 
length may evidently take place in the mind, without 
any relation being observed between its successive links 
Our Emotions may also constitute links in this train. 
The author gives good reasons for preferring the term 
Suggestion to Association. 

Next, by the phenomena of Relative Suggestion are 
implied our feelings of a different order, that arise when 
two or more objects are contemplated together, feelings 
of their agreement, or difference, or proportion, or some 
one or other of the variety of their relations. Though at 
first sight this classification of our Intellectual States 
may appear to be excessively simplified, yet the author 
is confident, that all the intellectual powers of which 
writers on this branch of science speak are only modes 
of these two, as they exist simply, or as they exist in 
combination with some desire more or less permanent. 

The laws which regulate simple suggestion are re- 
duced to three : Resemblance or Analogy, Contrast, and 
Contiguity in time or place. If one feeling or idea re- 



882 brown's philosophy of mind. 

semble another, it may suggest it. If it be of an op- 
posite description to another, it may suggest it. If it 
has been felt by us before in local or momentary 
contiguity with another, it may suggest it. Who- 
ever will watch the trains of thought and feeling that 
pass through his own mind, will perceive that they fol- 
low each other in endless succession, only according to 
one or another of these three laws. By a refinement of 
analysis, the author believes that he might reduce them 
all to one ; but he retains this obvious and tangible di- 
vision, for the purpose of more distinctly exhibiting the 
various characteristics of the mind. 

The difference between genius and mediocrity he 
places in this : — the simple suggestions of genius are 
those generally of resemblance or analogy ; but if a 
man's suggestions are commonly those of proximity in 
time or place, he is but a creeping, ordinary person. We 
cannot give the author's splendid, varied, and extended 
illustrations of this distinction. , 

The three primary laws of simple suggestion are, 
however, very much modified and affected in their opera- 
tion by several circumstances, which the author denom- 
inates the Secondary Laws of Suggestion, and which he 
reduces to the nine following classes. He finds that our 
Suggestions are various accordingly as the original feel- 
ings which they revive were, — first, of longer or shorter 
continuance ; secondly, more or less lively ; thirdly, more 
or less frequently present; fourthly, more or less re- 
cent ; fifthly, more or less pure from the mixture of 
other feelings ; sixthly, that they vary according to dif- 
ferences of original constitution ; seventhly, according 
to differences of temporary emotion ; eighthly, accord- 



brown's philosophy of mind. 383 

ing to changes produced in the state of the body ; and, 
ninthly, according to general tendencies produced by 
prior habits. 

The illustration of these secondary laws, occupying 
the thirty-seventh Lecture, presents an elegant specinien 
of original, true, and beautiful philosophy. 

In defence of his substitution of the word Suggestion 
for Association, the author objects to the latter, as im- 
plying sonae previous link or bond of connection between 
the mental feelings said to be associated. His greatest 
and plainest argument against such a supposition is, that 
an object, seen for the first time, suggests many new 
conceptions ; w^hich renders the notion of any former 
association purely absurd. His philosophy pretends to 
go no farther than the simple fact of the rise of one men- 
tal feeling from the occurrence of another, while the com- 
mon phraseology introduces a new mystery, and even 
involves, as he shows, unavoidable absurdities. That 
our suggestions do not follow each other loosely and 
confusedly is no proof, he contends, of prior associations 
in the mind, but merely of the general constitutional ten- 
dency of the mind to exist, successively, in states that 
have certain relations to each other. 

Then follows a series of some of his most brilliant 
achievements. Former philosophers have been at con- 
siderable pains in enumerating and describing various 
intellectual powers, such as Conception, Memory, Rec- 
ollection, Fancy, Imagination, Habit, and the like. Dr. 
Brown proposes to show, that this variety of powers is 
unnecessarily and unphilosophically devised. He would 
reduce them to the principle of Simple Suggestion ; or, 
at least, to this simple principle, in combination with 



384 brown's philosophy of mind. 

some of those other principles which were pointed out 
as parts of our mental constitution, in his arrangennent 
of the phenomena of mind. 

First, the power of Conception, so called, where the 
perception of one object excites the notion of some ab- 
sent object, he allows to belong to the mind ; but he 
maintains that this is the very function which is meant 
by the power of Suggestion itself, and that, if the con- 
ception be separated from the suggestion, nothing will 
remain to constitute the power of suggestion, which is 
only another name for the same power. There is not, 
in any case of suggestion, both a suggestion and a con- 
ception, more than there is, in any case of vision, both a 
vision and sight. What one glance is to the capacity of 
vision, one conception is to the capacity of suggestion. 
"We may see innumerable objects in succession ; we may 
conceive innumerable objects in succession. But we 
see them because we are susceptible of vision ; we con- 
ceive them because we have that susceptibility of spon- 
taneous suggestion by which conceptions arise after 
each other in regular trains. 

The next supposed intellectual power to which he 
calls our attention is Memory. This, he very acutely 
maintains, is not a distinct intellectual faculty, but is 
merely a suggestion, and a feeling of relation, the rela- 
tion of priority in time. When we think of a house, 
without any relation to former time, or any other rela- 
tion, we have only a simple suggestion of it; but when 
we think of it as the abode where we formerly lived, the 
suggestion receives the name of memory. Now, be- 
tween the power of simple suggestion and the general 
power of feeling relations, hereafter to be considered, 



brown's philosophy of mind. 385 

what becomes of such a faculty as Memory ? It van- 
ishes before the analytical magic of Dr. Brown. 

So Recollection, which is conceived to be a kind of 
voluntary memory, and particularly under our control, he 
reduces to "the coexistence of some vague and indis- 
tinct desire with our simple trains of suggestion." As 
long as the desire of remembering a particular event or 
object continues to exist, a variety of suggestions, more 
or less directly connected with the event or object, spon- 
taneously arise in the mind, until we either obtain, at 
last, the remembrance which we wish, or, by some new 
suggestion, are led into a new channel of thought, and 
forget altogether that there was anything which we 
wished to remember. 

Next, Imagination is reduced to its component ele- 
ments. The momentary groups of images that arise, 
independently of any desire or choice on our part, and 
arise in almost every minute to almost every mind, con- 
stitute by far the greater number of our imaginations. 
Here is evidently only a process of simple suggestion. 
But there are cases in which desire, or intention of 
some sort, accompanies the whole or the chief part of 
the process, and it is of these cases that we are accus- 
tomed to think, in speaking of this supposed power. By 
Imagination, in the common use of the word, is meant 
the creative power of the imagination. But is even this 
a separate and peculiar faculty of the mind ? The fol- 
lowing is the process by which the author shows that it 
is not. First, there arises to the mind of any given 
Imaginer some conception, or simple svggesiion of a par- 
ticular subject ; next, this subject excites in him a desire 
of producing by it some beautiful or interesting result. 

33 



386 brown's philosophy of mind. 

This desire, like every other vivid feeling, has a degree 
of permanence which our vivid feelings only possess ; 
and, by its permanence, tends to keep the accompanying 
conception of the subject, which is the object of the de- 
sire, also permanent before us; and while it is thus per- 
manent, the usual spontaneous suggestions take place ; 
conception following conception, in rapid but relative 
series, and our judgment, all the time, approving and re- 
jecting, according to these relations oi fitness and unfitness 
to the subject which it perceives in parts of the train. 

Such is the author's picture of the state, or successive 
states, of the mind, in the formation of every species of 
production which goes by the name of a work of imagi- 
nation. It is not, he insists, the exercise of a single 
power, but the development of various susceptibilities, 
— of desire^ — of simple suggestion, by which conceptions 
rise after conceptions, — of judgment or relative sugges- 
tion, by which a feeling of relative fitness or unfitness 
arises, on the contemplation of the conceptions that have 
thus spontaneously presented themselves. The results 
of this process will, of course, be different in value ac- 
cording to the constitution of different minds, and also 
according to the various influences of those secondary 
laws of suggestion which were before pointed out as 
modifying the primary. In the mind of inventive ge- 
nius, conceptions follow each other, chiefly according to 
the relations of Analogy, which are infinite, and therefore 
admit of constant novelty ; while in the humbler mind, 
the prevailing tendencies of suggestion are those of for- 
mer Contiguity of objects in place and time, which are, 
of course, limited, and by their very nature confined to 
conceptions that cannot confer on the mind in which 



brown's philosophy of mind. 387 

they arise the honor of originality. The forty-second 
Lecture, containing the full developnient and illustration 
of the foregoing principles, is one of the finest, one of 
the most interesting, in the series. Imagination and 
fancy, however, seem to be used throughout as synony- 
mous, or at least with no attempt at distinguishing them. 
"Where the author endeavors to show the spiritual mech- 
anism, as it were, by which, in conducting a work of 
imagination, some images are selected in preference to 
others, the train of discussion is peculiar to himself, and 
contains a full condensation of some of his most original 
doctrines. 

The next Lecture contains two very curious specula- 
tions, in opposition to the doctrine that Habit is an ulti- 
mate and peculiar law of the mind, and explaining ail 
its phenomena by the mere operation of simple sugges- 
tion ; after which, the absurdity and incompetency of 
the Hartleian system of vibrations and vibratiuncles are 
in various ways exposed and refuted. 

We now proceed to describe the other class of in- 
ternal affections of the mind, comprehending our feel- 
ings of Relative Suggestion, that is, all our feelings of 
relation. There is an original tendency or susceptibility 
of the mind, by which, on perceiving together different 
objects, we are instantly, without the intervention of any 
other mental process, sensible of their relation in certain 
respects, as truly as there is an original tendency or 
susceptibility of the mind, by which, when external ob- 
jects are present, and have produced a certain affection 
of our sensorial organ, we are instantly affected with the 
primary elementary feelings of perception. These rela- 
tions we recognize both among external objects and 



388 brown's philosophy of mind. 

our mental feelings of every kind, and they are divided 
by our author into two general classes. We perceive 
relations among them as they coexist at any given in- 
stant in groups, without any reference to succession in 
time. Thus, you feel that two is to twelve, as twelve 
is to seventy-two, and you feel this, merely by con- 
sidering the numbers together, without any regard to 
time. No notion of change or succession is involved in 
it. This is the first general class of relations. Next, 
w^e perceive relations among objects and among our 
feelings, considered with reference to time, as succes- 
sive. Thus you perceive the relation of effect and 
cause between the bloom of summer and the warmth 
of its sky. 

The first of our classes of Relations, those of which 
the subjects are regarded without reference to time, are 
subdivided into five different kinds. First, there is the 
relation of Position. Mark the furniture standing about 
your room ; one article on your right, another a little 
farther on, another directly opposite, and so forth. Sec- 
ondly, the relation of Resemblance or of Difference. 
Observe in your path two flow^ers of the same tints and 
forms, or of different odors. Thirdly, the relation of 
proportion. Think of the equality between the vertical 
angles formed by two straight lines, which cut one an- 
other; of the pairs of numbers four, six, — five, twenty, 
— and your mind exists immediately in that state which 
constitutes the feeling of Proportion. Fourthly, the re- 
lation of Degree. Listen to one voice, and then to a 
voice which is louder; smell one flow^er, and then anoth- 
er which is more or less fragrant. Fifthly, the relation 
of Comprehension. Consider a house and its different 



brown's philosophy of mind. 389 

apartments ; a tree and its branches, stems, and foliage ; 
a horse and its limbs, trunk, head, — and you have the 
feeling of the relation of parts to one comprehensive 
whole. By some subtilty and refinement of analysis, 
these divisions might be made fewer, but they are suffi- 
ciently distinct for every purpose of arrangement. 

Passing over the first of these five classes, the author 
directs our attention to the relation of Resemblance. 
To this principle he ascribes all classification^ and conse- 
quently everything which is valuable in language. It is 
the use oi general terms, that is to say, of terms founded 
on the feeling of resemblance, which alone gives to lan- 
guage its power, enabling us to condense, in a single 
word, innumerable objects, which, individually, would 
be utterly impossible to be grasped by us in our concep- 
tions. It would be unjust to refuse to Dr. Brown a 
chaplet of glory for the masterly penetration with which 
he has treated the subject of general ideas, and the un- 
rivalled degree of light and simplicity diffused by him 
through dark, tangled difficulties, amid which all former 
philosophers, without exception, had been hopelessly 
groping. Time was, when, if we had wished to make 
a common man tremble, and a wise one appear foolishly 
profound, we could not have devised a more successful 
method, than to ask them how they would explain an 
abstract general notion. The very phrase is even now 
bewildering and distressing, in consequence of old asso- 
ciations involved with it. Yes, even now, when our 
admirable author has revealed to the world, — what the 
world may well wonder it never clearly and scientifically 
knew before, though all, down to child and idiot, must 
have felt and practised upon it every day, — that the feel- 
33 * 



390 brown's philosophy of mind. 

ing of similarity is that which constitutes a general 
notion. " The perception of objects, the feeling of their 
resemblance in certain respects, the invention of a name 
for these circumstances of felt resemblance, — what can 
be more truly and readily conceivable than this process ! 
And yet on this process, apparently so simple, has been 
founded all that controversy as to tmiversals, which so 
long distracted the schools ; and which, far more won- 
derfully, (for the distraction of the schools by a few un- 
intelligible words scarcely can be counted wonderful,) 
continues still to perplex philosophers with difficulties 
which themselves have made ; difficulties which they 
could not even have made to themselves, if they had 
thought for a single moment of the nature of that feel- 
ing of the relation of similarity which we are now con- 
sidering." (Lecture XLV.) 

The point in dispute was shortly this. One party 
maintained, that, besides all the objects which we can 
know individually, there are in existence certain uni- 
versal forms comprehending whole classes of objects. 
What does the word triangle represent? Surely not a 
triangle of three equal sides only, nor one of two equal 
sides only, nor one merely of three unequal sides. If it 
signify anything, they contended, it must signify a uni- 
versal triangle, comprehending all possible properties of 
all possible triangles. So of the words man, tree, horse, 
flower, and other common substantives. The phrase 
Universals a parte rei, which they gave to these sup- 
posed general essences, was expressive of real existences, 
and they who maintained the doctrine itself assumed 
the appellation of Realists. Pythagoras, Plato, and 
their followers in the schools and closets of two thou- 



brown's philosophy of mind. 391 

sand years, held this doctrine with more or fewer modi- 
fications. The last lingering relic of its intlaence in 
England probably died with Dr. Price. 

On the other hand, their opponents contended, that 
there is nothing in existence but particular and indi- 
vidual objects alone ; and that the names which we give 
to whole classes of them are entirely creatures of our 
own arbitrary invention, employed, for the sake of con- 
venience, to comprehend many particulars under one 
general term. These philosophers, for an obvious rea- 
son, were called Nominalists. Their doctrine dates 
from Koscellinus, a native of Brittany, who lived in the 
eleventh century. Abelard, Occam, Hobbes, Berkeley, 
Hume, Dr. Campbell, and Dugald Stewart, have been 
among the most celebrated of its defenders. The Em- 
peror Louis of Bavaria, and Louis the Eleventh of 
France, took sides on the question, and led to the field 
the usual arguments of kings. 

The great stumbling-block of the Nominalists has been, 
the principle according to which we conduct the classifi- 
cation of objects, and the comprehension of many under 
one general term. They have considered it as purely a 
matter of arbitrary performance on the part of men ; and 
have never formally explained what constitutes those 
classes of objects to which we give a common name. 
They have not allowed that there is any other mental 
operation in the business of classification, besides the 
perception of objects, and the immediate employment of 
general terms. Dr. Brown has satisfactorily developed 
the true intermediate operation of the mind between 
these two ; that is to say, a perception of the relation of 
resemblance among whatever objects we rank under one 



392 brown's philosophy of mind. 

general term. The consideration of this relative sug- 
gestion elucidates all the mystery, and reconciles nearly 
every difficulty. It allows to the Realist, not indeed his 
universal forms and universal ideas, but a real operation 
of the mind, which fills up the hideous chasm that of- 
fended him, when persuaded to believe that there was 
nothing in existence to correspond with a name or order. 
It grants to the Nominalist the whole absurdity of Uni- 
versals a parte rei, but it presses upon him the existence 
of that which he denied, though he needed it; namely, a 
general notion in the mind, as the ground and reason 
for the employment of general terms. If it were the 
7iame only, which, as they say, forms the classification, 
and not that previous relative feelings or general notion 
of resemblance of some sort, which the name denotes, 
then might anything^ insists Dr. Brown, be classed with 
anything^ and be classed with equal propriety. 

Dr. Brown is far from claiming to be the first who 
conjectured, that there is some intermediate operation of 
the mind serving as a transition between the ideas of 
particular objects and the generalization of them by uni- 
versal terms. There was formerly the sect of " Con- 
ceptualists," who maintained that we conceive of univer- 
sal ideas, and give corresponding names to them though 
they do not exist in reality. Locke and Reid were the 
more modern disciples of this school. But this argu- 
ment has been successfully wielded against them, that 
it is as impossible for us to conceive of a triangle, or a 
man, comprehending in their respective natures the va- 
rious and contradictory properties of all possible trian- 
gles and all possible men, as that there should be in ex- 
istence the universal forms of such monsters of thought. 



brown's philosophy of mind. 393 

Adam Smith had expressly pointed out, indeed, this 
principle of resemblance used in generalization. But 
when Dr. Brown tooiv the field, the victory was con- 
sidered to be in the hands of the Nominalists. How 
he has snatched the prize away from them, and become 
at once umpire and conqueror, may be learned from the 
foregoing sketch, and more at large and satisfactorily 
from the author's own extended speculations, which he 
concludes, along with the minor work, by saying : " There 
have been Realists, Nominalists, Conceptualists. It is 
as a Relationist that I would technically distinguish 
myself." 

On recurring to Professor Stew^art's Elements of the 
Philosophy of the Human Mind, to see whether resem- 
blance^ as the principle of classification, could have es- 
caped so acute and profound a thinker, we find that he 
does suggest it, in his introductory observations on the 
faculty of abstraction, though unwarily and by chance 
as it were ; and that he seems altogether unconscious of 
the extensive influence which it possesses in the opera- 
tions of the mind. That, in the progress of his inquiries, 
he loses sight of this principle, and ascribes omnipotent 
influence to the arbitrary use of names, must be evident 
to all who peruse his fourth chapter. 

If Dr. Brown has left anything to be desired in this 
part of his philosophy, it is a more exact and distinct 
description of what he means by Resemblance. Per- 
haps the notion is not to be defined, but must be left to 
the consciousness of the inquirer, like the explanation of 
a color or a sound. Yet we can easily conceive that an 
obdurate Nominalist, before he yields his ground, might 
demand some definition of this mysterious and flexible 



394 broavn's philosophy of mind. 

cement, which unites into one class objects so unlike in 
some respects as an acute angle and an obtuse angle, or 
a man and an insect, an elephant and an animalcule, or 
a globular atom and the world. Is it possible to hit 
upon an explanation of Resemblance, which shall com- 
prehend the infinitely multiplied cases in which it ex- 
ists among objects, forms, motions, and conceptions, 
that involve at the same instant infinitely multiplied 
diversities ? We decline entering now upon so shad- 
owy a speculation, wishing, however, that our author 
had devoted a Lecture or two to its prosecution. 

Among the five species of relations before enumerated, 
of which one, that is. Resemblance, has just been treat- 
ed, the reader must recollect that of Comprehension, 
or the relation of a whole to its parts. To this our 
author next proceeds. The relative suggestion, which 
involves this relation, is considered by him as the great 
single and simple instrument of our reasonings ; nay, its 
continued operation is that which, according to him, in- 
volves the whole process of reasoning. He begins with 
single propositions. In every proposition, he says, that 
which is affirmed is a part of that of which it is affirmed. 
Snow is white. White is one of the many feelings 
which constitute your complex notion of snow. For a 
proof that reasoning consists of a number of propositions 
of this kind, each involving this relative notion of com- 
prehension, we give an example, in the words of the au- 
thor, of a somewhat extended, abstract, moral argument, 
as an extreme case. 

" When I say a man is fallible, I state a quality involved in 
the nature of man, as any other part of an aggregate is involved 
in any other comprehending whole. When I add, he may there- 



brown's philosophy of mind. 395 

fore err, even when he thinks himself least exposed to error, I 
state what is involved in the notion of his fallibility. When I 
say, he therefore must not expect that all men will think as he 
does, even on points which appear to him to have no obscurity, 
I state that which is involved in the possibility of his and their 
erring even on such points. When I say, that he therefore 
should not dare to punish those who merely differ from him, 
and who may be right even in differing from him, I state what is 
involved in the absurdity of the expectation, that all men should 
think as he does. And when I say, that any particular legisla- 
tive act of intolerance is as unjust as it is absurd, I state only 
what is involved in the impropriety of attempting to punish those 
who have no other guilt than that of differing in opinion from 
others, who are confessedly of a nature as fallible as their own." 
■—Lecture XLVIII. 

Granting, then, that the process of reasoning is nothing 
but the perpetual evolution of successive parts, by which, 
at each new step, that which was just now a part takes 
its turn to be considered as a whole, and some one of its 
own parts to be detected by the reasoner, and so on- 
ward, till he has arrived at some desired or unexpected 
end of his investigations, — yet it is evident, that, for 
the purpose of successful ratiocination, the propositions 
should follow each other in a certain order. How is it, 
then, that they arrange themselves, as they rise in suc- 
cession, in this necessary order ? 

Mr. Locke's and the common opinion is, that we have 
a certain sagacitTj^ by which we find out each successive 
step that occurs in a rightly ordered course of reasoning. 
But this is only explaining the difficulty by the difficulty 
itself. The question still remains, what the order of prop- 
ositions is, which some persons have more, and some 



396 brown's philosophy of mind. 

less sagacity, or rather facility and readiness, in seizing 
upon than others. The whole seeming mystery of this 
order, in the propositions which form our longest pro- 
cesses of reasoning, depends, according to Dr. Brown, on 
the regularity of the laics which guide our simple sugges- 
tions. In the first place, it is necessary that we should 
have a continued desire to come to some conclusion on 
any given subject. This continued desire, the nature of 
all our emotions being more permanent than our flitting 
and restless intellectual states, keeps the subject itself 
constantly before our minds ; then, by the primary laws 
of suggestion before described, the conception of the 
original subject suggests various other conceptions. This 
is the second of the three stages in the process. Now 
to different minds the conceptions suggested are notori- 
ously different. A man cannot ivill any new concep- 
tion in a train of reasoning, for that would be to sup- 
pose the conception already in his mind. Nor does the 
same man reason equally well, nor even in the same 
manner, on a given subject, at difTerent times. To-day 
you can arrive by five steps of reasoning at a certain 
conclusion, which yesterday more circuitously cost you 
ten. Another man perhaps might never arrive at your 
conclusion, in consequence of his conceptions obstinate- 
ly taking a different course, even when starting from the 
same subject with yourself. Yet his reasoning may be 
perfectly correct, as well as yours; the difference between 
the conclusions arising from the difference between the 
conceptions suggested. We must, however, remember 
that there is a third stage in the process, which is, to feel 
the relation of Comprehension, as above stated, between 
any conception as a whole and some one of its parts. 



brown's philosophy of mind. 397 

And different men are also worse or better reasoners ac- 
cordingly as they have a less or greater tendency to 
feel this relation. 

In the foregoing subtile speculations, which we have 
taken much pains to represent in the most intelligible 
and favorable manner that a severe abstract would al- 
low, the author has indeed ingeniously accounted for 
the various opinions existing among mankind, and has 
thus taught a philosophical lesson of comprehensive 
charity. But we must confess we looked for more. Is 
it come to this ? Does reason depend for its authority 
on the accidental conceptions of men ? We want a 
rule, that shall decide between the two opposite conclu- 
sions at which equally acute reasoners may, and do so 
often, arrive. We do not like that there should be occa- 
sion for charity. We are anxious for uniformity, though 
not in the way by which legislative theologians would 
enforce it. Perhaps such a rule is never to be discov- 
ered in our imperfect world, where, from unavoidable cir- 
cumstances, different conceptions must necessarily arise 
in different minds. But this is the very point, if it must 
be so, on w^hich we regret that Dr. Brown did not more 
emphatically dwell. Was he unwilling to confess the 
weakness of that very instrument with which he has 
wrought so many triumphs ? No man could have illus- 
trated the subject more happily. He too, with his rare 
union of penetration and philosophical devotion, might 
have pointed out, with perhaps unrivalled felicity, what 
consolations mankind still possess in the absence of 
an infallible and convincing test of true reasoning, 
and what limits the Almighty himself has established 
for our safety in the very constitution of our minds, 

34 



398 brown's philosophy of mind. 

when he placed us in this dark, agitated, and doubtful 
state. 

Perhaps an interesting sketch of the various orders 
of intellects might be taken in connection with Dr. 
Brown's views and classifications of the simple and rela- 
tive suggestions. A mind, for instance, which has a 
peculiar tendency to feel the relation of Comprehension 
between any whole subject and all its possible parts or 
properties, is happily adapted, according to the theory 
just given, to logic, reasoning, and demonstration in 
general. If the tendency of a mind be to feel the rela- 
tion of Proportion, (though with some subtilty this rela- 
tion may be reduced to the former,) its inclination is to 
mathematical demonstration. If it be chiefly inclined 
to perceive the relation of Resemblance or Difference, it 
deals in the generalizations of philosophy or in the dis- 
tinctions of wit. If its habit be to look for the relation 
of Degree, or comparison, it will be likely to excel in ex- 
quisite taste and judgment. If its leading tendency be 
to feel only the relation of Position, it is of an humbler 
order. There are a few minds which seem to be blessed 
with equal and decided capacities for all these five rela- 
tive suggestions; and if the same minds also are gifted 
with tendencies towards the higher order of simple sug- 
gestions, that is to say, the suggestions of Analogy, before 
dwelt upon, which will almost infinitely multiply the re- 
sources of new conceptions among which relations are 
to be felt ; and if also their simple suggestions of prox- 
imity in place or time be unusually abundant, meaning 
thereby, apart from the author's nomenclature, only a 
strong and ready memory, — on such minds nature has 
conferred a singular and enviable pre-eminence. Of 



brown's philosophy of mind. 399 

course, the infinite diversities among different minds will 
follow the corresponding distributions which nature or 
circumstances may make of the foregoing tendencies, 
modified also, be it observed, by the secondary laws of 
suggestion already enumerated. 

Dr. Brown skilfully overthrows the thrice-slain syllo- 
gistic system, robbing it even of the little reputation it 
still possessed as a mode of communicating knowledge. 
He shows that it is in this light, if possible, still more 
defective than as a mode of acquiring it. 

Besides the Relations of Coexistence, the five classes 
of which have been now considered, there is one more 
order, which involves the notion of time, or priority and 
subsequence, and these the author denominates Rela- 
tions of Succession. They are of two classes. " They 
are relations either of casual or of invariable antecedience 
or consequence ; and we distinguish these as clearly in 
our thought, as we distinguish any other two relations. 
We speak of events which happened after other events, — 
as mere dates in chronology. We speak of other events, 
as the effects of events or circumstances that preceded 
them. The relations of invariable antecedence and conse- 
quence, in distinction from merely casual antecedence and 
consequence, is this relation of causes and effects^ Our 
notions of the fitness or unfitness of objects to produce 
certain results are ascribed by the author to our Relative 
Suggestions of Succession. " All practical science is the 
knowledge of these aptitudes of things in their various 
circumstances of combination, as every art is the em- 
ployment of them, in conformity with this knowledge, 
with a view to those future changes which they tend to 
produce in all the different circumstances in which ob- 



400 brown's philosophy of mind. 

jects caii be placed. To know how to add any enjoy- 
ment to life, or how to lessen any of its evils, is nothing 
more in any case than to know the relation which ob- 
jects bear to each other, as antecedent and consequent, 
some form of that particular relation which we are con- 
sidering." 

The faculty of Taste the author analyzes into two 
separate elements, one of which he refers to this feeling 
of the Relation of Succession. One of these elements is 
the existence of certain emotions of admiration or disgust 
that arise in the mind at the perception of various objects 
in nature and art. The other element, which involves 
the feeling of the Relation of Succession, is the knowl- 
edge of the particular forms, colors, sounds, or concep- 
tions that are most likely to be followed by those emo- 
tions. 

The last specimen of Dr. Brown's analytical achieve- 
ments of this kind which we shall now present, is his 
explanation of Abstraction, a faculty by which we are 
supposed to be capable of separating in our thought cer- 
tain parts of our complex notions, and of considering 
them thus abstracted from the rest. But the whole mys- 
tery of this supposed faculty is nothing more than the 
perception of the relation of resemblance between two or 
more objects in certain common properties, without vol- 
untarily or even consciously separating or regarding 
those other properties in which the objects are unlike. 
If we are capable of perceiving a resemblance of some 
sort when we look at a swan and on snow, why should 
we be astonished, he asks, that we have invented the 
word lohiteness to signify the common circumstance of 
resemblance ? Or why should we have recourse, for this 



brown's philosophy of mind. 401 

feeling of whiteness itself, to any mysterious capacity of 
the mind, but that which evolves to us the similarity 
which we are acknowledged to be capable of feeling ? 
Thus dissolves the last horrida crux that has tormented 
so many metaphysical as well as unmetaphysical in- 
quirers. 

We have now exhibited Dr. Brown's outlines of the 
External Affections of the Mind, and its purely Intel- 
lectual States; two of the three leading divisions into 
which he distributes all our mental states or feelings. 
His peculiar and prominent claims to originality here 
may be suggested in one word, by mentioning his exhi- 
bition of the predominant share of influence which the 
Muscular System exerts in the first class of feelings, and 
his analytical reduction of the whole of the second class 
to Simple Suggestions and Felt Relations. ' 

The Emotions remain now to be considered, before 
completing the author's system of the Physiology of the 
Mind. He declines venturing on a definition of Emo- 
tions, affirming that the attempt would be as truly im- 
possible as to define sweetness, or bitterness, a sound, or 
a smell, in any other way than by a statement of the 
circumstances in which they arise. 

The author's general principle of arranging the Emo- 
tions is their relation to time. They are, — 

Immediate, or involving no notion of time whatever ; 

Retrospective, or relating to the past ; 

Prospective, or relating to the future. 

Admiration, remorse, hope, may serve as particular 
instances to illustrate this distinction. We admire what 
is before us ; we feel remorse for some past crime ; we 
hope some future good. 

34* 



402 brown's philosophy op mikd. 

Were they considered only as elementary feelings, 
without any regard to time, the emotions, he says, might 
be reduced to the following: joy, grief, desire, astonish- 
ment, respect, contempt, and the two opposite species of 
vivid feelings, which distinguish to us the acts or affec- 
tions that are denominated virtuous or vicious. Such 
a consideration of them, however, would be much more 
abstract, uninteresting, and inapplicable to human life 
and conduct, than the method which he has adopted. 

The immediate emotions are subdivided into those 
which do not involve any feeling that can be termed 
moral, and those which do involve some moral affec- 
tion. 

The following are our immediate emotions of the 
former kind : cheerfulness, melancholy, wonder, mental 
Weariness, the feeling of beauty, disgust, our feelings of 
sublimity and ludicrousness. To the latter subdivision 
may be referred the vivid feelings that constitute what 
we distinguish by the names of vice and virtue, consid- 
ered apart from the mere intellectual judgments we form 
respecting actions ; our emotions of love and hate ; of 
sympathy with the happy and with the miserable ; of 
pride and humility. 

The retrospective emotions are subdivided as they re- 
late to others and to ourselves. Those which relate to 
others are anger and gratitude. Those which relate to 
ourselves are simple regret and satisfaction, without the 
mixture of any moral feeling; and, finally, remorse and 
self-approbation. 

The prospective emotions comprehend all our de- 
sires and all our fears. Of the former, the most impor- 
tant may be considered as enumerated in the following 



brown's philosophy of mind. 403 

series. " First, our desire of continued existence, with- 
out any immediate regard to the pleasure which it may 
yield ; secondly, our desire of pleasure, considered di- 
rectly as mere pleasure; thirdly, our desire of action; 
fourthly, our desire of society ; fifthly, our desire of 
knowledge ; sixthly, our desire of power, — direct, as in 
ambition, or indirect, as in avarice ; seventhly, our desire 
of the affection or esteem of those around us ; eighthly, 
our desire of glory ; ninthly, our desire of the happiness 
of others ; and, tenthly, our desire of the unhappiness of 
those whom we hate." The following paragraph on this 
subject is a happy specimen of the author's analytical 
skill, and of the gracefulness and facility with which he 
makes the common nomenclature of our mental feelings 
fall into his own philosophical arrangements. 

" I must observe, however, in the first place, that each of these 
desires may exist in different forms, according to the degree of 
probability of the attainment of its object. When there is little 
of any probability, it constitutes what is termed a mere wish ; 
when the probabihty is stronger, it becomes what is called hope ; 
with still greater probability, expectation ; and with a probability 
that approaches certainty, confidence. This variation of the form 
of the desire, according to the degrees of probability, is, of course, 
not confined to any particular desire, but may run through all the 
desires which I have enumerated, and every other desire of which 
the mind is, or may be supposed to be capable." — Lecture LV. 

In the spirit of the foregoing paragraph, the reason 
why no peculiar place is set apart for the Passions in 
this classification is, that our passions are truly no sepa- 
rate class, but merely a name for our desires when very 
vivid or very permanent. 

Dr. Brown, also, goes into no separate classification of 



404 brown's philosophy of mind. 

our Fears, since it is evident that they are excited by 
precisely the same objects which excite our desires. We 
desire to obtain any object, we fear that we shall not 
obtain it. We dread any pain or calamity ; we wish, 
we hope, that we may escape it. Thus, our fears and 
our desires are correlative feelings, and whatever is said 
of the one may be referred, by a contrasted application, 
to the other. 

We have thus given a mere rough synopsis of the au- 
thor's arrangement of the Emotions. He devotes to 
them twenty-one of the hundred lectures. This portion 
of the book will probably be found the most popular and 
interesting of the whole. It is generally rich and de- 
lightful writing, with the exception of some commonplace 
prosing, and a little occasional declamation. The au- 
thor separately considers each article in the foregoing 
ample catalogue, metaphysically, morally, and theologi- 
cally. His speculations on this department of his sci- 
ence would well bear dividing into a number of pro- 
found and elegant essays. They are adorned with a 
variety of apposite and beautiful illustrations, from a 
rather limited but very select range of reading. Perhaps 
the most felicitous and striking traits in this busy pic- 
ture of the emotions are the luminous explanations of 
the final causes for which each of them was introduced 
into our mental constitution. The wisdom and good- 
ness of the Creator are here very impressively vindicat- 
ed. Even anger, hatred, and other passions, most gener- 
ally liable to abuse, are shown to bear their necessary 
part in that harmonious arrangement which provides for 
the happiness of the species. But this consideration 
leads the author to establish safe lines of distinction, and 



brown's philosophy of mind. 405 

to deduce from an enlightened view of our whole nature 
a body of excellent moral rules. To attempt even a 
slight sketch of the acute and profound disquisitions, the 
exquisite analysis, the fine sensibility, the sterling good 
sense, the eloquent and earnest recommendations of 
morality, the examination and confutation of many opin- 
ions and theories of Alison, Hutcheson, Smith, Stewart, 
and other philosophers, which these twenty-one Lectures 
exhibit, would be a task agreeable indeed to ourselves, 
and profitable to our readers, but far too disproportioned 
to other purposes for which this essay is designed. 

Among the very few topics here treated, on which we 
have found reason to dissent from the ingenious author, 
is that of Avarice. It will be seen, in his enumeration 
of the Desires above represented, that he regards avarice 
as only a modification of our desire of power. We are 
persuaded that this is an inaccurate reference of the real 
and original principle of the emotion in question. Av- 
arice is often exercised without regard to the attain- 
ment of any kind of power whatever. It loves money 
and property purely as such, and not for the gratifica- 
tions they can purchase. Dr. Brown was aware of this 
phenomenon, and felt its inconsistency with the above 
classification of the desires. He labors at great length, 
and quite unsuccessfully, to account for this obvious 
anomaly in his system. He falls into a maze of his own 
creating, by first ranking avarice as an indirect desire of 
power, and then finding that it is not always a desire of 
power. He wonders, through a whole Lecture, why the 
miser should be so eager to deny himself all kinds of 
gratifications for the sake of that money whose only real 
value is that it can purchase, and is the representative 



406 brown's philosophy or mind. 

of, those very renounced gratifications ! Would not our 
author's perplexity and inconsistency have been very 
easily prevented, by only adding an eleventh class of de- 
sires to the ten already laid down ? Does not avarice 
flow from a distinct, original, and independent emotion, 
namely, a love of hoarding, or, as our author would have 
called it, the Desire of Acquisition ? The child hoards 
its shells and pebbles, the virtuoso his curiosities, the 
collector his books, the scholar, often, his intellectual 
stores, and the miser his gold, almost entirely for the 
gratification of this simple and separate propensity, with 
a comparatively faint and fortuitous influence of other 
motives. And to pursue a favorite train of the author's 
speculation, before alluded to, it is well for us that our 
Creator has implanted in our minds this particular de- 
sire. In His prospective benevolence, indeed, it was 
intended to be a direct means of acquiring power, as 
instrumental to our improvement and happiness. But 
man often fulfils this intention blindly. An inattention 
to the distinction here pointed out misled the author, we 
doubt not, into his defective classification. Were it not 
for the strong operation of the instinctive propensity we 
are suggesting, man must often have perished through 
w^ant, the consequence of carelessness and improvidence. 
We were not left to calculate the benefits resulting from 
frugality, nor to wait until we should smart from priva- 
tions, occasioned by lavishness and inexperience. A de- 
sire of mere acquisition, therefore, seems to be a com- 
pensation as beautiful as it is indispensable in this fluc- 
tuating and precarious world. A too great indulgence 
of the feeling, of course, becomes, like an abuse of any 
other desire, criminal and mischievous. 



brown's philosophy of mind. 407 

It was probably in consequence of not adverting to 
this indubitable law of our mental constitution, that Dr. 
Brown, in endeavoring to account for the unreasonable 
excesses of avarice which are sometimes witnessed, was 
led to lay a very disproportionate stress on the regret 
that arises from early prodigality. Indeed, he would 
seem at times to regard this regret as the original foun- 
dation and main ingredient of the passion. We are con- 
strained to question the correctness of this theory. Who 
has not known instances of a decided bent towards ava- 
rice, which could be traced up to the earliest period after 
infancy, when it was impossible that the little miser 
could have felt any inconvenience or regret arising from 
prodigality or extravagance ? Fasten down the cover of 
a box, make in it a small aperture, persuade your child 
to drop into it every coin that is given him, tell him to 
search for money on the parade-ground early in the morn- 
ing after each muster-day, instruct him to bargain away 
his cake and his toys for cash, deliver to him perpetually 
short solemn lectures and cautions on the propriety of 
saving and hoarding his money, and such discipline, 
acting on the native desire for which we have been con- 
tending, will soon convert him into a sordid wretch, long 
before he has experienced one feeling of pain at the loss 
of that cake which in fact he has never enjoyed. Re- 
gret for squandered means, we allow, is often one among 
the many other circumstances which Dr. Brown has so 
happily enumerated as enhancing and aggravating the 
force of the avaricious principle, and may sometimes 
awaken and develop it when it has slept for a long time. 
But we cannot believe it to be the main-spring of the 
passion itself, nor sufficient, especially, to remove the 



408 brown's philosophy of mind. 

embarrassment which the author has encountered in the 
exposition of his theory. Even should the separate de- 
sire on which we insist be denied, still we would ac- 
count for most of the workings of avarice on principles 
far different from this regret. But we cannot trust our- 
selves now with the discussion. 

Dr. Brown has with great felicity assigned several rea- 
sons for the paradox in common life of a person's parting 
tranquilly with large sums, while the loss of a small one 
is sufficient to destroy his happiness for a day. He 
might have accounted for this latter case, in some in- 
stances, not so much from merely avaricious feelings, as 
from the shame of being overreached in a bargaining 
transaction. To many persons it is an intolerable 
thought that the tradesman with whom they are dealing 
will wink, in halfpenny triumph, at his brother trades- 
man, as soon as their backs are turned. Many, also, 
contend long for a trifle, from a pure sense of justice. 

We come now to the consideration of our author's 
Ethical System. The Science of Ethics, he observes, 
has relation to our affections of mind, not simply as phe- 
nomena, but as virtuous or vicious, right or wrong. 

What, then, is the virtue which it is the practical ob- 
ject of this science to recommend? Why do we con- 
sider certain actions, says Dr. Brown, and, we would 
add, certain feelings, as morally right, and others as mor- 
ally wrong? The only test, according to him, is a simple 
emotion of approbation or of disapprobation. We are so 
constituted, that we cannot help approving certain classes 
of human actions, and disapproving certain other classes. 
God himself, who gave us a relish for wholesome food, 
and a distaste for what is injurious, has, for analogous, 



brown's philosophy of mind. 409 

but far higher purposes, created us subject to such im- 
mediate moral feelings. 

These emotions, our author contends, are uniform in 
all men, but occasionally modified by three circumstances. 
First, the influence of passion obliterates for a time, in 
many minds, the emotions that ought to arise on the 
contemplation of moral or immoral actions. Secondly, 
individuals, and even whole nations, have sometimes 
partial and imperfect views of the true tendencies of 
certain actions, in which there is a mixture of good and 
evil, and this is the cause why morality appears to fluctu- 
ate in different times and places. Thirdly, association, 
in various ways, exerts considerable influence in modify- 
ing and perverting the emotions which would otherwise 
be naturally produced by particular kinds of actions. 
The author insists, that these three limitations still leave 
unimpaired the great fundamental distinctions of moral- 
ity itself, — moral approbation towards the producer of 
unmixed good as good, and moral disapprobation towards 
him who produces unmixed evil for the sake of evil. 

He refutes the sophistry and scepticism which pretend 
that, in consequence of the foregoing limitations, the sci- 
ence of morality is unsettled, and virtue itself but a pre- 
carious and fluctuating name. He maintains, that, where 
one instance can be found of disagreement among men 
in approving certain actions and disapproving certain 
others, there are millions of instances, all over the world, 
of a perfect uniformity of moral sentiment. 

The author next proceeds to examine other theories of 
morality which have been broached by different writers. 
Hobbes, who makes virtue to depend on political enact- 
ment ; Mandeville, who reduces it to a corrupt love of 

35 



410 brown's philosophy of mind. 

praise ; Clarke and Wollaston, who identify it with the 
fitness and the truth of things ; Hume, who measures it 
solely by the standard of general utility ; the ancient and 
modern disciples of Aristippus, who resolve it into the 
pursuit of selfish gratification ; Paley, who defines it to 
be " the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will 
of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness " ; and 
Dr. Smith, who allows it no other standard than our 
sympathy with the feelings of others, — are successively 
met by elaborate confutations. In these strictures we 
see displayed an instinctive acuteness in seizing the 
points at issue, and an unrivalled power of argument. 
The author, of course, throughout the whole speculation, 
says many things to justify and illustrate his own system 
of morality, and mode of treating it. We, also, have a 
few remarks to suggest. 

The great defect of Dr. Brown's ethical theory is, that 
he has confined his attention entirely to actions^ which 
are only the occasional signs and representatives of vir- 
tue and vice in moral beings. We admire his discovery, 
as it may well be called, and on which another superior 
mind of our own country,* by a remarkable coincidence, 
has lighted, that certain feelings of vivid approval and 
disapproval are the true and original tests of right and 
wrong. As the physical qualities of substances can only 
be properly known, distinguished, and described by their 
effects on our senses, and not by vain attempts to ascer- 
tain their abstract nature, so the moral qualities of think- 
ing and responsible agents are to be designated by their 
effects on other minds. This, indeed, is an ingenious, a 

* The late Professor Frisbie. See his Miscellaneous Writings, edited by 
Andrews Norton, p. 144, et seqq. 



brown's philosophy of mind. 411 

noble principle ; it is a bright-eyed offspring of the Ba- 
conian philosophy; it is the pioneer to satisfactory con- 
clusions on the subject before us ; it throws at once a 
flood of light upon this hitherto perplexed and obscure 
discussion. But having seized on the mighty instrument 
itself, Dr. Brown seems to have failed to apply it with 
his usual comprehensive energy. In inquiring what ob- 
jects, when contemplated by us, excite the approving or 
disapproving emotion, he has strangely omitted the con- 
sideration of those mental feelings, or rather stales of 
mind, which, in the first place, give to actions their entire 
moral character, and, in the second place, constitute, by 
themselves, more than nine tenths of the vice and virtue 
of the world, without ever being brought into action. 
Thus, simple indifference to the welfare of others we dis- 
approve as vice. A mere intention, a wish, is often vir- 
tuous or vicious. Refraining from action is frequently 
virtue or vice. Mere purity of mind we regard with the 
approving glow which is paid to active virtue. Regret, 
shame, anger, joy, and other emotions, are regarded as 
right or wrong, according to the occasions on which they 
arise. It is not the blush that we admire and approve ; 
but the modesty, of which that meteor-like tinge is the 
enchanting signal. It is not the mere phantasmagoric 
sight of a man, exposing his life to save a drowning en- 
emy, that excites within us the vivid feeling of approba- 
tion ; it is the sublime state of his soul at the moment, 
which the action itself is only instrumental in making 
known. 

Now, in consequence of not adverting to these essen- 
tial considerations. Dr. Brown has left this part of his 
ethical discussions in no little imperfection and perplex- 



412 brown's philosophy of mind. 

ity. He all along states it as an ultimate law of our 
constitution, that certain actions excite within us the ap- 
proving or the disapproving feeling, by which we distin- 
guish them as virtuous or vicious. He speaks as if the 
moral nature of every action were immediately and in- 
tuitively known, as right or wrong, in the same manner 
as a color is immediately recognized as green or yellow. 
He takes no account of that long and varied thread of 
experience, observation, acquisition, reflection, deduction, 
culture, admonition, discipline, and example, by which 
moral feelings and ideas are developed in the mind of 
the child, and by which alone it comes at length to form 
its judgments of the character of moral actions. This, 
certainly, is a loose handling of the question, a very im- 
perfect analysis of the matter under discussion. 

If, therefore, the foregoing reflections are just, the true 
and amended theory of Dr. Brown, the really ultimate 
law of our moral institutions, for which he sought, would 
be this. 

Certain emotions^ desires^ intentions^ or states of mind^ 
in other men, which are made known sometimes by ac- 
tions, sometimes by other sensible signs, and sometimes 
by verbal information, more or less direct, excite within 
us the vivid feeling of approbation, or disapprobation, 
corresponding to which we are accustomed to denomi- 
nate those states of mind, and the actions they produce, 
virtuous or vicious, right or wrong, moral or immoral. 
We are the more confirmed in this amendment of our 
author's philosophical views, from its coinciding with 
the principles of morality inculcated in the Sermon on 
the Mount. 

It is from this point, we humbly think, that all ethical 



brown's philosophy of mind. 413 

science must properly begin. Its adoption, we are per- 
suaded, would have supplied a palpable defect in the 
work before us, and saved some readers many an hour of 
wistful dissatisfaction and perplexity. It is no more cor- 
rect to confine the question to actions^ than to the looks 
of the countenance. A tolerably plausible system of 
morals might be built on the latter, as well as on the 
former species of exterior manifestations. Would that 
theory of dialing be complete or scientific, which con- 
fined the inquiry to the shape of the gnomon and the 
motions of the shadow alone, while the primary consid- 
eration of the sun's movements and rays remained un- 
touched ? Our author, in the outset of the discussion, 
seems to have had a glimpse of the principle we have 
been urging, but certainly lost sight of it afterwards. 
He defines the Science of Ethics, as having relation to 
our affections of mind, as virtuous or vicious, right or 
wrong. Then why not proceed, and erect the science 
upon this broad and true foundation ? Why abandon it 
almost immediately, and say, " One inquiry alone is 
necessary, — what actions excite in us, when contem- 
plated, a certain vivid feefing, " &c.* We trust we have 
sufficiently shown the very narrow and incomplete rela- 
tion which this particular inquiry bears to ethical science 
as a whole. 

In inquiring what constitutes the sense of moral obli- 
gation, Dr. Brown appears to us to be aiming at a theory 
of too much simplicity. *' To feel," says he, " the char- 
acter of approvableness in an action which we have not 
yet performed, and are only meditating on it as future, 



* Edin. Ed., Vol. IV. p. 148. 



414 brown's philosophy of mind. 

is to feel the moral obligation, or moral inducement to 
perform it." The late Professor Frisbie seems to have 
been dissatisfied with this explanation, but in his criti- 
cism upon it has not, we think, exactly approached the 
difficulty. " Are there not many actions," he asks, 
" which seem to us to have very little virtue or merit, 
yet by which the feeling of obligation is very strongly 
excited ? nay, is not the obligation often inversely as the 
merit, as, for example, in regard to the payment of honest 
debts ? " * To these interrogatories we reply, that the 
obligation which Professor Frisbie instances is not prop- 
erly or entirely a moral obligation. Apparently without 
being conscious of the fact, he has shifted the very point 
in question. In regard to the payment of honest debts, 
there is something more than the sense of moral obliga- 
tion ; there is the sense of legal obligation ; there is also 
the dread of offending society, creating enemies, and 
thus injuring one's general interests. Let a law be 
passed exonerating the debtor ; let public opinion too 
coincide with the law. There will then be merit in pay- 
ing the debt, and a merit exactly in proportion to the 
moral obligation. 

In what respects, then, may it be said that Dr. Brown's 
theory is deficient ? According to our opinion, he has, 
undesignedly, however inconsistently with himself, sug- 
gested the precise and true theory in a subsequent part 
of his speculations. " When I say," he remarks, " that 
it is my duty to perform a certain action, I mean nothing 
more than that, if I do not perform it, I shall regard my- 
self, and others will regard me, with moral disapproba- 

* Miscellaneous "Writings, p. 157. 



brown's philosophy of mind. 415 

tion." * Here, we are convinced, he has fallen upon the 
right key to the nature of moral obligation. It is not 
enough for us simply to approve an action, in order to 
feel the whole force of such obligation ; the very word 
obligation implies some conditional compulsion^ constraint, 
apprehended penalty in case of our neglecting the duty. 
Now, what is the penalty implied in the idea of moral 
obligation ? Surely, as our author suggests above, the 
pain which all moral beings feel in disapproving them- 
selves, or being justly disapproved by others. It is this 
which we dread ; it is this which constrains us. The 
moment we allow a fear of any other nature than this to 
operate upon us, such as a dread of corporal punishment, 
or bodily pain of any other kind, or an injury to our gen- 
eral interests, the moral changes into the character of 
physical obligation. 

Dr. Brown's distribution of the Duties is the old and 
obvious one of duties to others, to ourselves, and to God. 
His treatment of this subject completes the work, and, 
on the whole, deserves a similar tribute of praise, and 
similarly modified, with that bestowed on his treatment 
of the more general subject of the Emotions. Curious 
speculations are pursued, current errors are refuted, novel 
and valuable ideas are advanced, magnificent common- 
places are unfurled and waved about, and over the whole 
is diff'used a vivid glow of moral and religious feeling. 



* Edin.Ed., Vol. IV, p. 395. Just to show the author's inconsistency with 
himself, above alluded to, turn over one leaf of his book, and there will be 
seen the following sentence : " It is, as I have said, on the one simple feeling 
of moral approvableness, that every duty, and therefore every right, is found- 
ed." But in the sentence in the text, has he not said that the sense of duty 
arises from a fear of disapprobation 1 



416 brown's philosophy of mind. 

A few Lectures, perhaps, in this portion, require a little 
bracing up of the attention ; one needs a perpetual recol- 
lection, that one of our immediate duties is to read Dr. 
Brown's inculcation of the duties, and it requires some 
resolution steadily to move on. In all probability, these 
few Lectures were written under the influence of a similar 
exhausted feeling. Yet, somewhat tedious as they are, 
they will repay a studious perusal. Nor is any consid- 
erable number of them fairly liable to the foregoing stric- 
ture. On the contrary, several will be found to exhibit 
the author's peculiar vivacity, originality, and other ex- 
cellences. We instance the beautiful and ingenious Lec- 
ture on friendship and gratitude, and one on the good- 
ness of the Deity. 

In treating of our duties to God, the author takes oc- 
casion to demonstrate the existence and attributes of the 
Almighty Being. He rightly discards the argument a 
priori^ which for ever assumes the very point to be proved. 
He relies altogether on the short, simple, but irresistible 
argument drawn from the appearances of benevolent de- 
sign, so profusely scattered over every part of the uni- 
verse. We are dissatisfied with his attempted demon- 
stration of the unity of God, and never yet have felt the 
force of the same point of reasoning when urged by other 
writers. It is founded on the unity and simplicity of de- 
sign everywhere exhibited in the works of the Creator. 
Two objections to this argument we cannot conquer. 
The first is, that it would be not very difficult to make 
out a case of irreconcilable contrariety and multiplicity 
of design, apparent in the works of nature. For instance, 
in one point of view, what tender care seems to be taken 
of the happiness of all living creatures, while, in many 



brown's philosophy of mind. 417 

respects, they seem to be left, with utter indifference, to 
their miserable fate. The second is, that, even if a per- 
fect unity of design, without the slightest apparent ex- 
ception, could be pointed out as prevailing in the uni- 
verse, it would not absolutely or satisfactorily prove a 
unity in the power which produced it. A million of dei- 
ties might conspire in the most complete uniformity of 
operations. A stranger to this earth would find a certain 
uniformity of design, nay, thousands of different opera- 
tions and results harmoniously conspiring to a single 
end, amidst all the works of men. But it is unnecessary 
to say how illogical would be his conclusion, that one 
being was the author of the whole. He might, perhaps, 
properly infer, that one genus of beings had been at work 
in the construction of our edifices, canals, cities, and 
other products of art. The mythology of the Greeks, 
which peopled every department of creation with presid- 
ing deities, was built on such an inference. And this, 
we are persuaded, is as far as human reason can legiti- 
mately advance, in settling the point of the simplicity or 
complexity of the divine nature. It is a matter as far 
removed from positive, abstract demonstration, as the 
Deity himself is removed from man. It is true, the idea 
of the unity of God is now embraced in the world with 
more or less distinctness and purity ; there is nothing in 
nature to contradict or refute it, since even an actual 
contrariety of design might be consistent with it ; nay, 
it is almost a self-evident truth ; philosophy can defend 
it by most plausible arguments ; but philosophy must 
not, cannot, assume the triumph of originally establish- 
ing and making it known. Every attempt to that effect 
which we witness, concurring with our inability to trace 



418 brown's philosophy of mind. 

it so clearly to any other quarter, only drives us back 
with increased conviction to the leading representation 
of the Hebrew Scriptures, that the idea in question was 
originally and directly communicated from Heaven, in 
one way or another, to men of Asiatic origin. 

When Dr. Brown comes to consider our duties to our- 
selves, he takes up the question of the Immortality of 
the Soul. He advances in the affirmative some argu- 
ments that are of the highest value, and others that ap- 
pear feeble and untenable. We will give an instance of 
each kind. They who hastily infer the destruction of 
the mind from the destruction of the body, will find it 
difficult to evade the force of the following reasoning, 
which has all the weight and acuteness characteristic of 
the author. 

" When the body seems to us to perish, we know that it does 
not truly perish, — that everything which existed in the decaying 
frame continues to exist entire, as it existed before ; and that the 
only change which takes place is a change of apposition or prox- 
imity. From the first moment at which the earth arose, there is 
not the slightest reason to think that a single atom has perished. 
All that was, is ; and if nothing has perished in the material 
universe, — if, even in that bodily dissolution, which alone gave 
occasion to the belief of our mortality as sentient beings, there is 
not the loss of the most inconsiderable particle of the dissolving 
frame, — the argument of analogy, far from leading us to suppose 
the destruction of that spiritual being which animated the frame, 
would lead us to conclude that it, too, exists, as it before existed ; 
and that it has only changed its relation to the particles of our 
material organs, as these particles still subsisting have changed 
the relations which they mutually bore. As the dust has only 
returned to the earth from which it came, it is surely a reasonable 
inference from analogy to suppose, that the spirit may have re- 
turned to the God who gave it." — Lecture XCVI. 



brown's philosophy of mind. 419 

Nothing was ever better said. But Dr. Brown was 
well aware of an argument, which the obstinate ques- 
tioner of the soul's infimortality still has in store ; namely, 
that all the mental operations, and consequently what 
the spiritualist gratuitously calls the mind itself, may be 
nothing more than phenomena resulting from the union 
and organization of material particles in a certain man- 
ner. So that when this organization is dissolved by 
death, the soul itself must cease to exist. Now to this, 
our author offers the following feeble argument : — 

" If any one were to say, the Sun has no thought, Mercury, 
Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and all their secon- 
daries, have no thought, but the Solar System has thought, — we 
should then scarcely hesitate a moment in rejecting such a doc- 
trine ; because we should feel instantly that there could be no 
charm in the two words, solar system, which are of our own in- 
vention, to confer on the separate masses of the heavenly bodies 
what, under a different form of mere verbal expression, they had 
been declared previously not to possess. "What the sun and planets 
have not, the solar system, which is nothing more than the sun and 
planets, has not ; or, if so much power be ascribed to the mere 
invention of a term, as to suppose that we can confer by it new 
qualities on things, there is a realism in philosophy far more 
monstrous than any which prevailed in the Logic of the Schools. 

" If, then, the solar system cannot have properties which the 
sun and planets have not, and if this be equally true, at whatever 
distance, near or remote, they may exist in space, it is surely 
equally evident, that an organ, which is only a name for a num- 
ber of separate corpuscles, as the solar system is only a number 
of larger masses of corpuscles, cannot have any properties 
which are not possessed by the corpuscles themselves, at the very 
moment at which the organ as a whole is said to possess them, — 
nor any affections as a whole, additional to the affections of the 



420 brown's philosophy of mind. 

separate parts. An organ is nothing ; the corpuscles, to which we 
give that single name, are all, — and if a sensation be an organic 
state, it is a state of many corpuscles, which have no more unity 
than the greater number of particles in the multitudes of brains 
which form the sensations of all mankind." — Lecture XCVIII. 

This reasoning will never do. To show its absurdity, 
let us follow it up for a moment in its own style. " If any 
one were to say, the Sun has no " mutual attraction, " Mer- 
cury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and all their 
secondaries," each separate and alone, have no mutual 
attraction, " but the solar system has" mutual attraction, 
" we should then scarcely hesitate a moment in rejecting 
such a doctrine." Thus, by our author's course of argu- 
ment, we could disprove one of the most obvious facts 
of natural philosophy. So, again, What an acid, when 
alone, has not, and an alkali, when alone, has not, the 
combination of acids and alkalies never can have ; and 
therefore such a phenomenon as effervescence between 
acids and alkalies, according to our author, can never 
take place. The truth is. Dr. Brown is here guilty of 
begging the question. The very argument of the ma- 
terialist is, that although the particles of matter, when 
separate, are not able to think, yet, when brought to- 
gether in a certain way, which the Deity may appoint, 
the result of their influence on each other may be the 
phenomenon which we express by the word thovght. 
This our author denies, maintaining that what one par- 
ticle cannot perform in a separate state, a multitude of 
particles cannot perform in any sort of combination. It 
is plain, however, that this is no answer, but only a flat 
denial of the materialist's argument, and, moreover, in- 
volves some most careless general positions, which are 



brown's philosophy of mind. 421 

immediately disproved by an appeal to ordinary experi- 
ence. 

Before quitting this topic, we would just ask the au- 
thor, Why so strenuous in maintaining the immateriality 
of the soul, when, in his noble argument quoted above, 
he assumes the imperishableness of matter ? 

On the whole, we cannot claim for him the merit of 
having placed the immortality of the soul on new and 
stronger vantage-ground than it occupied before. His 
reasonings on the subject appear to us to be full of as- 
sumptions. As might be expected, the discussion leads 
him too far from the track of pure philosophy into the 
entanglements of metaphysics. In defending the unity 
and indivisibility of the thinking principle, qualities 
which he regards as essential to its immortality, but 
which we do not, he is betrayed into arguments quite 
inconsistent with other statements in different parts of 
his work. For instance, he vigorously maintains that 
the mind can exist only in a single state at once. But 
according to his whole philosophy elsewhere, and even 
according to the most common experience, that very 
mind is capable of existing in an intellectual state, and 
in an emotion, simultaneously ; and when, before ex- 
plaining the soul's personal identity, he allowed that, 
along with the memory of a sensation or an idea, we 
have an intuitive belief that we are the same individ- 
uals who had the sensation or idea before. One would 
suppose that in these cases there are two states in which 
the mind exists at the same moment. But our author 
endeavors to surmount the inconsistency, by denominat- 
ing them one complex state. Now, we confess our- 
selves quite as unable to conceive how the single men- 

36 



422 brown's philosophy of mind. 

tal principle can exist in what the author defines as a 
complex state, as how it can exist in two different states 
at once. If the latter be incompatible with its nature, 
why is not the former also ? There is certainly some- 
thing within us which compares one intellectual state 
with another, — one emotion with another, — and intel- 
lectual states with emotions. The self-active immortal 
principle seems to stand, as it were, out of the immediate 
region of the thoughts and emotions, and to scan, com- 
municate with, and in some measure to guide and con- 
trol them. But these are shadowy speculations. The 
truth is, that the phrase " complex state," or the still 
more impalpable and metaphysical phrase, which is 
sometimes a favorite one with the author, " a state 
of virtual comprehensiveness," is but a wordy covering 
for an unconquerable difficulty, and leaves the real na- 
ture of the mind in as much obscurity as ever. Amidst 
all his horror for rash hypothesis and gratuitous assump- 
tion, we are astonished at finding him everywhere as- 
serting, as if it were an axiom of Euclid, that " the mind 
is not composed of parts that coexist, but is simple and 
indivisible,^^ Now this is unwarrantable. According 
to the true spirit of the new philosophy, we have nothing 
to do with this question. Much can be said plausibly 
in favor of the compound nature of the mind, without 
furnishing any fair triumph to scepticism, or exciting 
any necessary alarm among modest philosophers. 

Indeed, we have no hope of gaining higher assurances 
of the soul's immortality from any new speculations on 
its internal structure. Be it simple, or be it compound, 
we do not despair. "We doubt whether all the philos- 
ophy in the world can either improve, or set aside, the 



brown's philosophy of mind. 423 

lucid and trul}^ Baconian argument of the Apostle to 
the Gentiles, founded on the analogy between the ger- 
mination of a perishing seed and the revivification of 
the human soul. The story left to us by the Galilean 
fishermen, which we are not ashamed to avow is far 
easier for us to believe than to doubt, needs no support 
from the visions either of a Plato or a Priestley ; and 
while we look down into the vacant tomb, that once be- 
longed to Joseph of Arimathea, we are little swayed, 
either one way or another, by the ingenuity and 
strength, or by the feebleness and inconclusiveness, ex- 
hibited in the reasonings even of Dr. Brown. 

Our abstract terminates here. As an abstract, it is 
of course imperfect, and must convey a faint idea of 
the work. We have rather dwelt upon those topics 
which seemed to require critical remark, than attempted 
to give a systematic sketch of all the author's achieve- 
ments. We shall now exact, from various quarters, a 
few contributions to the illustration of our author's char- 
acter and writings. We regret that an essay on his 
life and genius, by the Rev. Mr. Welsh, of Edinburgh, 
has never reached our hands. The following notice is 
from a volume of the Edinburgh Magazine, for the year 
1820. 

" Dr. Brown's character was one of extreme, and, I might al- 
most say, of fastidious refinement. The habits of speculative 
philosophy and abstract thought had not destroyed the vivacity 
of his imagination, or chilled the warmth of his heart. He was 
by nature an enthusiast, and the prominent features of his mind 
in early youth were sensibility and ardor. At school he was 
distinguished by extreme gayety and sweetness of disposition, 
and his contemporaries remembered how much he delighted and 



424 . brown's philosophy of mind. 

excelled in the recitation of dramatic poetry. Soon after he en- 
gaged in philosophical studies, he distinguished himself for acute- 
ness of reasoning ; and his answer to Darwin's Zoonomia demon- 
strated the discriminating powers of his mind. It is not for the 
writer of this letter to presume to analyze the subtilty, and pro- 
found originality, of his metaphysical inquiries. Among those 
who attended his lectures, some complained of a certain vague- 
ness and refinement that bordered on obscsrity ; but when he 
entered on the moral part of his course, he excited the highest 
degree of enthusiasm for all that was elevated and noble in hu- 
man nature. It was then he gave full scope to the lofty concep- 
tions of his mind, and displayed an energy and devotion in the 
cause of moral truth that could not be surpassed, and can never 
be forgotten. 

" Dr. Brown's manners might be considered somewhat artifi- 
cial, and yet no man had more simplicity and singleness of heart, 
if that term belongs to one uninfluenced in his opinions, tastes, 
inclinations, and habits, by the caprices of fashion, or the calcula- 
tions of a worldly mind. He never sought the society of the 
fashionable, the rich, or the high-born, on account of any of these 
adventitious circumstances. He carried the independent purity 
of his political principles into the morals of private life. His 
habits were abstemious, simple, and self-denied. His liberality 
to those who needed his pecuniary assistance was as frank as it 
was unostentatious. But his benevolence Avas not of a kind to 
content itself with the cheap indulgence of almsgiving. Long 
after he had given up medical practice, he gave his time and atten- 
tion to the sick friends who required his advice ; and what Burke 
said of Howard, in a sense restricted to the particular objects of 
his attention, might be said of Dr. Brown universally : ' He at- 
tended to the neglected, and remembered the forgotten.' There 
are many persons, wholly unknown to the circles of fashionable 
life, who received constant proofs of his cheering and kind atten- 
tion. One instance of this is so characteristic of his turn of mind, 



brown's philosophy op mind. 425 

that I cannot omit mentioning it. Two Ayrshire peasants, who 
had made considerable progress in languages as well as in botani- 
cal and mathematical science, were recommended to his notice. 
After presenting them with gratis tickets for his lectures, he in- 
vited them to breakfast; the conversation turned on botanical 
drawing. One of them proposed to show the Doctor some speci- 
mens of his performance in that art. ' I was pleased,' said he, on 
relating this circumstance, * to see the progress I had made in 
the confidence of these young men during the hour of breakfast. 
They first came to my low door, but when they returned with 
the drawings, they rang at the front door. I had inspired them 
with the feeling of equality.' 

" The political principles of this excellent man were those of 
genuine Whiggisra, untainted with the asperity of party preju- 
dice. His reprobation of tyranny and oppression, wherever it 
was exercised, will be remembered by those who have heard him 
express his satisfaction at the overthrow of Napoleon Bonaparte, 
whose despotism he execrated. He took a deep interest in the 
political events of his own country. The five restrictive bills, 
passed during the winter session of 1819, excited his warmest 
indignation ; and in a meeting held by the Senatus Academicus, 
on the occasion of condoling with and congratulating his present 
Majesty, he expressed his opinion of those measures very strong- 
ly. The most minute circumstances, favorable to civil and relig- 
ious liberty, interested him to the last ; and, as an affecting in- 
stance of the sincerity of his feelings on subjects connected 
with the freedom of his country, I may mention, that, during his 
last illness, he daily inquired into the state of the Middlesex poll, 
an event deeply interesting on a moral as well as political prin- 
ciple, as being the grateful effort of a generous people to reward 
the son for the virtues of the father ; and when he was told, two 
days before he died, that it had closed in favor of young Whit- 
bread, though unable to speak, his countenance and manner ex- 
pressed the liveliest satisfaction. 
36* 



426 brown's pjaiLosoPHt of MiNt), 

" He had returned in the autumn of 1819 to Edinburgh, in 
remarkably good health, and engaged with much ardor in the 
composition of his class-book. He had even sketched out great 
literary designs for his future execution, but that fatal disorder, 
"which terminated in pulmonary consumption, seized him during 
the Christmas recess. He only lectured twice after the vacation. 
During the last lecture he delivered, he was greatly affected 
when he read some lines on the return of spring from Beattie's 
Hermit. He wished to persevere in his course. But his aflfec- 
tionate friend and physician. Dr. Gregory, forbade it, and strong- 
ly recommended him to try the effects of a warmer climate. His 
reply was : ' No, I must die at home ; you have no idea how 
miserably I am afflicted with the maladie du paysJ His decline 
was rapid and alarming. As long as he had strength to hold a 
pen, he continued to give unremitting labor to the writing of his 
class-book. In February, 1820, he received a short visit from 
his revered friend, Mr. Dugald Stewart, though at that time he 
scarcely admitted any one but his medical friend, and the mem- 
bers of his own family. On taking leave of Mr. Stewart, he said 
gayly, but emphatically, ' I hope Moral Philosophy will live long 
in you.' " 

In addition to the above gratifying sketch, an Ameri- 
can correspondent has obligingly furnished us with the 
following interesting particulars, which the numerous 
admirers of Dr. Brown in this country will receive much 
pleasure in perusing. 

" In compliance with your request, I send you the following 
very general statements. With Dr. Brown I was personally ac- 
quainted, and occasionally spent an evening at his house. I ex- 
perienced much of his hospitality during my stay in that country. 
Immediately upon my arrival at the city of Edinburgh, after the 
opening of the session of the University, I called upon Dr. 
Brown, and procured a ticket of admission to his class. Inter- 



BRO^^'S PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 427 

preting the intent of your request in the sense in which I be- 
lieve you designed me to do, I have been led to adopt the follow- 
ing simple plan. The personal appearance of Dr. Brown seems 
first to draw my attention. His was in a very especial degree 
that of an intense student. He was of ordinary stature ; of a 
pale and wan physiognomy ; careless and inattentive in his dress. 
The character of his countenance was highly attractive, and 
none could meet him in the streets without noticing it in a par- 
ticular manner. Profound thought was engraven on every fea- 
ture. There appeared to be a great mind at work within, and 
absorbed in the most abtruse speculations. The outward aspect 
of Dr. Brown evinced to the observing mind, that his trains of 
thought were those of a high order. Next, as to the mode 
which he adopted in delivering his lectures. In the class-room 
he appeared in the most advantageous point of view. His man- 
ner was grave and dignified. He commanded profound silence, 
marked attention, and a high expression of regard. He read, or 
with more propriety I should say he recited, his lectures in an 
animated strain. He appeared himself to feel the importance of 
those intellectual views which he had created and was delivering, 
and was solicitous that the value of them should be perceived 
and appreciated by those who heard them. He read the poetical 
quotations, occasionally introduced, in a distinct and impressive 
manner. I was accustomed to hail w^ith delio;ht the returnino- 
toll, which summoned us ; and regarded the lecture as a philo- 
sophical treat. Dr. Brown did not permit his students to take 
notes during the time of lecturing, owing to a fact with which you 
are doubtless familiar, namely, that, a few years preceding, some 
of the lectures of Mr. Stewart were presented to the public in a 
garbled form, before the author himself had issued them. Dr. 
Brown was desirous that his students should, at the close of the 
lecture, apply to him for the solution of those doubts of a meta- 
physical kind that might arise. With such he would freely con- 
verse. 



428 brown's philosophy of mind. 

" He was intensely studious. Although- surrounded by such a 
host of social attractions as Edinburgh presents, he allowed not 
his studious habits to be violated. I heard him state, that he set 
apart two evenings during every week, either for the reception of 
his company, or for his own personal relaxation. The rest of his 
time he considered as sacred to study. The manners of Dr. 
Brown were interesting and rather refined. He was full of con- 
versation ; very vivacious, and remarkable for the versatility of 
his information and diction. He could instantly enter upon any 
topic, however remote, and in his usual happy strain. In pri- 
vate life he was truly amiable. Two sisters lived with him, whom 
he supported. The most marked affection appeared to exist be- 
tween them. He was devoted to the gratification of their slight- 
est wishes. His feelings as a man were generous and noble. He 
possessed more than an ordinary share of sensibility, and would 
indulge, in the hour of conversation, in the most sympathetic 
strain, on any scene of distress which he had either witnessed or 
of which he had heard." 

A glimpse into Dr. Brown's lecture-room, as most of 
our readers will remember, is furnished in the saucy but 
entertaining " Letters of Peter to his Kinsfolk." 

Having collected and presented the foregoing testimo- 
nials of the peculiarities of our author's genius, and some 
notices of his life, a few desultory remarks on the former 
subject, and on the work before us, are all that we now 
feel justified in attempting. 

The prominent capacity in which Dr. Brown offers 
himself to our minds is that of a fearless, minute, and 
ultimate Analyst, This is the characteristic that distin- 
guishes him from every other author on record. We are 
not disposed to vindicate his absolute superiority in many 
other striking qualifications. His style is far from being 
faultless, his scholarship is neither exquisite in choice nor 



broavn's philosophy of mind. 429 

extensive in its range, nor are his observations on life 
and manners peculiarly rich or original; though in all 
these, as well as in many similar valuable requisites for a 
public instructor, he is not only not deficient, but is much 
more than respectable. But in the art of looking into 
the elements and finer relations of things, in detecting 
the action and reaction between mind and matter, in 
reducing all human knowledge to its first principles, we 
boldly pronounce him to be without a competitor in our 
language. The true focus of Dr. Brown's mind, the 
mark at which its most intense power acted, was fixed 
by nature for microscopic inspection. His more com- 
prehensive surveys and larger classifications, though often 
imposing and magnificent, are sometimes dim, unwieldy, 
and incomplete. Witness his original arrangement 
of Politics and Political Econo^ny among the peculiar 
branches of the Philosophy of the Mind, an arrange- 
ment, however, which he did not subsequently follow. 
For another instance to the same purpose, we refer to 
his Inquiry into Cause and Effect, which wants distinct- 
ness in its general management and outline, though all 
the separate details of the argument are conducted with 
wonderful acuteness and power. Again, while we fol- 
low him along the track of his curious speculations, or 
peruse his more splendid and ambitious compositions, 
we seldom or never meet with those happy generaliza- 
tions of expression, which so frequently astonish and de- 
light us in the French school of the last century. In- 
deed, if a generalization of this kind had struck him, he 
would not have been content to state and leave it sim- 
ply to his reader. He would have indulged his favorite 
habit of tracing out all the particulars that went to form 



430 brown's philosophy of mind. 

it, thus appearing to arrive by gradual steps at a conclu- 
sion, on which Voltaire or Diderot would have alighted 
at once. 

But they, on the other hand, displayed little of his pe- 
culiar faculty and strength. Whoever will gaze, through 
the medium of Dr. Brown's representations, at the ob- 
jects of his analysis, will perceive them clothed with un- 
wonted brilliancy and distinctness, and new points of 
vision starting up which were unsuspected before. All 
nature crumbles into infinitesimals before his glance. 
No man is a warmer adorer of the aggregate beauty and 
glory of the universe, but no man was ever so prone to 
regard it as a world of atoms. So too, while he is an 
impassioned admirer of roses and beautiful faces, he can- 
not avoid reducing them, by a kind of stereographic pro- 
jection, into plain surfaces of colored rays. He gazes with 
a poet's delight on the splendid embroidery which nature 
hangs around us, but traces the involutions of every thread 
with still more of the eagerness of a metaphysician. He 
has erected new landmarks between the regions of illu- 
sion and those of reality. He has dissolved much of 
the influence which names exert on our ideas of things. 
The study of his writings produces on the mind a simi- 
lar effect with the study of chemistry. We look round 
upon creation with almost newly furnished optics ; every 
incident suggests matter of philosophical speculation ; 
the motions of an infant, and the actions of an adult, 
" all thoughts, all passions, all delights," assume un- 
accustomed aspects, and exhibit interesting relations in 
the varied system of things. It is w^orthy of remark, 
that, at the same moment when Davy was accomplishing 
some of his greatest achievements in the analysis of 



brown's philosophy of mind. 431 

matter, Brown was arriving at some of his most bril- 
liant results in the analysis of mind. Both natural and 
intellectual science seem to have attained a point of 
equal progress, when these two contemporaries arose, 
to push further analogous discoveries respectively in 
each. 

The next most remarkable characteristic that distin- 
guishes our author is the undisguised warmth of his 
moral sentiments. It is rather out of fashion, with ex- 
isting literature, to seem very much in love with virtue. 
The phantom reproach of cant lowers in the distance, 
and frightens the moralizer into a well-dissembled indif- 
ference. The public is a kind of good company, whose 
feelings must not be hurt ^by declamations against its 
favorite peccadillos. The whining sentimentality of 
some authors, which was carried to a disgusting extreme 
about the end of the last century, and which received its 
death-blow from Sheridan's character of Joseph Surface, 
has undergone the usual reaction of other human ex- 
travagances, and writers and talkers are now almost 
ashamed to testify any enthusiasm in favor of the parlor 
every-day virtues. Rousseau's delightful declamations, 
too, were mingled with so much that w^as unprincipled 
and false, tliat they contributed not a little to the same 
effect. Dr. Brown has been one of the first to break this 
chill spell of assumed apathy. He comes forward, with- 
out fearing the charge of mawkishness or of hypocrisy, 
and pours out his whole soul in ardent praise of what- 
ever is good and lovely. He appears as the unshrinking 
advocate, especially, of all the domestic and gentler vir- 
tues. The seriousness of his enthusiasm is well calcu- 
lated to put to flight the sceptical and profligate smile of 



432 brown's philosophy of mind. 

the scoffer. His works, in this respect, might be recom- 
mended as an antidote to the poison of Byron. Unlike 
most moral philosophers, he treats not of the virtues 
and of our moral feelings with the same cold and scien- 
tific interest that he would inquire into the affinities 
of a salt or a metal. His inmost sympathies keep 
pace with his subject, and impart light to it. Several 
indirect testimonials to the truth and inspiration of 
Christianity are scattered throughout his Lectures. He 
is thus shielded from a charge, often urged against the 
productions of his illustrious predecessor. But we wish 
that he were more than so shielded, and that Chris- 
tianity had been more directly, explicitly, and formally 
introduced into his moral system. We lament the mis- 
erable mistake, into which so many moral philosophers 
have been betrayed, in declining any assistance from the 
New Testament. How might Dr. Brown have added 
light, sanctity, and authority to his own doctrines, while 
he in turn would have contributed no small support to 
the cause of Christianity ! Can it be doubted, that Dr. 
Chalmers is at this moment supplying the defect on 
which we have been animadverting? May his attempts 
be wise and successful. 

We have but a few words to say respecting our au- 
thor's style. We remember hearing reported a happy 
jeu d^esprit on this subject, from the admired writer of 
Letters from the Mountains. When asked how she was 
pleased with Dr. Brown's poetry, she replied, that it had 
too much metaphysics for her ; and when immediately 
again questioned how she liked his metaphysics, she 
pronounced it too full of poetry. There is at least some 
foundation for this smart antithesis, though not enough to 



brown's philosophy of mind. 483 

raise a serious objection against the writings in question. 
Dr. Brown published several volumes of poetry at dif- 
ferent times, but, in our opinion, scarcely a line of it 
was sufficiently metaphysical or respectable to deserve 
reading over, with the single exception of the Paradise 
of Coquettes. This work, published anonymously, was 
immediately, by the unanimous consent of the critics, 
pronounced to be second of its kind only to the Rape of 
the Lock. There are metaphysics in it, but we cannot 
think it too metaphysical. That portion of it particu- 
larly entitled to this epithet is one of the most ingenious 
and original efforts of the English Muse. It is a de- 
scription of the heaven of coquettes, and we have always 
regretted that so very lofty a flight of the imagination 
should have been introduced into a work of a design so 
gay and humorous. It is difficult to read it without feel- 
ing religiously, rather than facetiously, disposed. It some- 
what resembles an inspired glimpse into the possibilities of 
a future state of being, and, with due modifications, would 
have been much more worthy of occupying a place in 
Baxter's Saints' Everlasting Rest, that gorgeous and 
delightful poem in prose, than of serving as a rhapsody 
in an heroi-comic effusion. 

With respect to the other point of the above-mentioned 
antithesis, we allow it to be better founded. There is a 
little too much of poetry in Dr. Brown's metaphysics, or, 
more exactly speaking, his general style as a writer is 
over-poetical, — ornamented in excess. We are very far 
from recommending it as a model, and should be sorry to 
see it adopted as such, with the same facility with which 
our young men copied the less ambitious, but still some- 
what too measured, flow of Mr. Stewart's periods. We 
37 



434 brown's philosophy of mind. 

have sometimes thought that, having written his Lec- 
tures when comparatively young, and adopted at that 
time a florid and towering manner. Dr. Brown was after- 
wards the less likely to correct it, in consequence of re- 
taining, repeating, and laboring upon the same course 
from year to year. He often indulges in solemn parade 
and emphatic preambles, while approaching the discus- 
sion of his topics, and talks much of the difficulty of his 
tasks. We know of no better way to characterize his 
style, than to denominate it ultra-Ciceronian. Coming 
short of the perfections attained, on the one hand, by the 
Roman orator, it leans, on the other, rather towards his 
faults. It is too elaborate, tumid, and redundant. It is 
like Akenside's verse turned into prose, except that it 
sends out not the slightest Grecian savor ; and this last 
circumstance, coupled with the rarity, amounting almost 
to absence, of quotations from the Greek, convinces us 
that the author must have been very superficially versed 
in the literature of that language. It may seem a hard 
and rash judgment to estimate a person's scholarship 
from the number of his learned quotations ; and so in gen- 
eral it is. But when one is a professed, and, as we may 
say, an inveterate quoter, filling his productions with ex- 
tracts from English and Latin authors, we may fairly 
conclude, that a line or two from Euripides, and a sen- 
tence now and then from Plato, if they had been ^' famil- 
iar to his ear as household words," would have embel- 
lished his moral declamations, or given point to some of 
his philosophical statements and conclusions. 

Notwithstanding these negative peculiarities, it must 
not be denied, that our Lecturer deserves to be ranked 
among the classical writers of the language. He is 



brown's philosophy of mind. 435 

wanting only in a kind of Augustan perfection ; yet 
still he is classical, in the same way as that epithet be- 
longs to Ammianus, to Statius, and to Seneca. The 
last author, by the way, is a god of his idolatry, and is 
quoted by him, we remember, alone of all others, five 
times in one Lecture. No man ever wielded the resour- 
ces of the English tongue more elaborately than Dr. 
Brown, or wrote it in more perfect purity. Yet it was 
the general European standard of its perfection at which 
he aimed, and not at its idiomatical properties and graces. 
His style has all the effort and completeness of a well- 
executed movement by some scientific composer, but lit- 
tle of the indescribable and native charm that pervades 
the beautiful melodies of his own country. He is full 
of brilliancies, while he has few felicities, and it is this 
defect which will lose for him the greatest number of 
readers. There are no easy, sweet, and playful turns in 
his diction, to relieve the strained and everlasting nisiis 
of scientific disquisition. He hammers everything to 
the last degree. There is not a thought shown us just 
as it came into his mind. Though we admire the pro- 
ductions of his skill, yet we almost hear the workman 
panting and striving at his labor, and the whole atmos- 
phere of his book is redolent of oil. 

A favorite figure of speech with the author, which he 
very frequently carries to a fault, is the climax. There 
is scarcely a Lecture that does not contain one. To set 
off some leading idea, or to give force and splendor to 
an illustration, circumstance is heaped upon circum- 
stance, and clause mounts over clause, till the breath of 
the stoutest reader gives way, and the dizzy train of his 
thoughts often goes with it. 



436 buo'svn's rniLOSoPHY of mind. 

We must acknowledge that, in the writings of Dr. 
Brown, there are too many obscure and difficult pas- 
sages. After making due allowance for the imperfect 
state in which his manuscripts may have been left,* for the 
abstruse and shadowy nature of many of his topics, and 
even for an occasional mysticism and unattainable aim in 
some of his thoughts, there still remain too many sen- 
tences to remind us, by contrast, of the unabating trans- 
parency of Mr. Stewart's diction. On the whole, we 
must allow that our author's is often a hard style to 
read, and, as we should have thought, a much harder 
one to hear. He seems frequently not to have adapted 
his sentences to the capacity of the ear. The attention 
is stormed and borne along, rather by the force and bril- 
liancy of the expressions, by the earnest energy of the 
writer, and by the novelty, splendor, and importance of 
his well-selected topics, than by the clearness and dis- 

* We take the liberty of mentioning here a confused and erroneous ar- 
rangement of a few of the Lectures, at the end of the first and beginning of 
the second volumes of the Edinburgh edition, and in the latter portion of the 
first volume of the Andover. To any one who will examine the matter 
with ordinaiy attention, there will, as we think, appear so many undeniable 
reasons for a substitution of the following arrangement, that we shall not 
take the trouble to enumerate them. It is certain that, as the Lectures now 
stand, nothing can be more perplexed and ill concatenated. To introduce 
order among them, we recommend these six movements. 

1. Lecture XXIV. as now numbered should unquestionably be Lecture 
XXIIL 

2. But the recapitulation prefixed to Lecture XXIII. as it now stands, 
including pp. 511, 512, Edinburgh edition, and p. 345, Andover edition, 
should remain as it is. Then the body of the true Lecture XXIII. will 
properly begin near the bottom of p. 537 Edinburgh, or on p. 362 Andover : 
" Tliat we now seem to perceive," &c. This, if we are correct, should be con- 
tinued to p. 563 Edinburgh, or 370 Andover, where Lecture XXIII. will 
properly end. 



BROA\rN's PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 437 

tinctiiess of each successive position, and a certain 
smooth and resistless current of language, of which Adam 
Smith, Paley, and Godwin in his philosophical works, 
occur to us just now as three of the most remarkable 
instances. It would be unfair, of course, to refer for 
this point of comparison to historical or narrative writ- 
ing. 

Though it is impossible to deny to Dr. Brown the 
possession of very extensive attainments in polite litera- 
ture, yet sometimes there occur passages which seem to 
indicate a want of familiarity with subjects that are 
at the fingers' ends of every general reader. In one 
place he condescends to impart, with much display, 
the information, that Abelard, besides his well-known 
connection with Eloisa, " was distinguished for his tal- 
ents and attainments of every sort"; and somew4iere 
else he tells us, as a perfect novelty, the whole story 

3. The recapitulation prefixed to Lecture XXIV. stands where it ought, 
ending near the close of p. 375 Edinburgh, or on p. 362 Andover, thus : 
" boundaries from the other." The body of the true Lecture XXIV. will 
begin at p. 513 Edinburgh, or p. 346 Andover, thus : " Though the notion of 
extension," &c., and continue to the end of p. 530 Edinburgh, or p. 357 
Andover, where the true Lecture XXIII. terminates. 

We know no way of accounting for the disorder here pointed out, except 
by supposing that Dr. Brown wrote his recapitulations on sheets of paper 
separate from the bodies of his Lectures, and thus that the bodies of Lecture 
XXIII. and Lecture XXIV. have accidentally changed places, while the 
recapitulations continued in their proper order. 

4. The whole of Lecture XXVII., recapitulation and all, should take the 
place and number of Lecture XXV. 

5. Lecture XXV., recapitulation and all, should take the rank and place 
of Lecture XXVL 

6. Lecture XXVL, in like manner, should entirely assume the place and 
rank of Lecture XXVII. A slight inspection will demonstrate the correct- 
ness of these last alterations. 

37* 



438 bkown's niiLOSoniY of mind. 

of the sympathetic needles from Strada's Prolusions. 
Mr. Stewart touches upon such things in a quite differ- 
ent manner. 

The remarks hitherto made apply to the general 
characteristics of Dr. Brown as a writer. We have a 
few more specific criticisms to offer on the particular 
Lectures before us. Their posthumous publication is a 
warrant for gentle treatment, of which, however, they 
little stand in need. It is enough to secure Dr. Brown 
the highest praise to say, that he has well discharged the 
vast responsibility of being the successor of Mr. Stewart, 
or rather, of taking up the Philosophy of the Mind where 
Reid and Stewart had left it. He enjoyed, indeed, some 
peculiar advantages in coming after such men, and inher- 
iting a certain general excitement and respect toward the 
science, to which they had been instrumental in raising 
the public mind. The era in which he wrote, too, was 
one of remarkable intellectual development. Poetry, and 
every branch of natural science, were daily accomplish- 
ing w^onders, and our author's condition was precisely 
such, that he must either produce corresponding achieve- 
ments in the Philosophy of Mind, or encounter the mor- 
tification of failure and obscurity. To these arduous ad- 
vantages he was equal. Certain it is, that during his 
life he sustained the highest reputation as a Lecturer, 
and that on every individual who witnessed his perform- 
ances, without, as far as we are aware, a single excep- 
tion, he made a favorable impression, unusually profound 
and permanent. 

A very valuable, if not the most valuable, feature of 
this great work, consists in the contributions which it 
furnishes to the science of Natural Theology. Paley 



brown's ruiLosoriiY of mind. 439 

had already collected, from every part of external ma- 
terial nature, the most striking proofs of benevolent 
design in the Deity. Brown has effected precisely the 
same object, with respect to the various phenomena of 
our intellectual frames. A volume might, with great 
ease, be extracted from different portions of these Lec- 
tures, which would completely fill up the chasm in 
Paley's outline, and deserve a place in every library on 
the same shelf with his celebrated treatise. Its plan 
might be consistently extended and improved, by the 
addition of such extracts as most directly contribute to 
the cause of religion, morality, and right thinking. One 
recommendation, at least, of the proposed work would be, 
that it would present a body of the most clear, original, 
popular, and least exceptionable passages that occur 
throughout the Lectures. Its tendency to higher utility 
can as little be doubted. 

The general plan of the Lectures is, perhaps, too un- 
wieldy and encyclopedic for a single work. We have 
no right to complain, indeed, of any author, for giving to 
the public, at whatever length, a series of delightful and 
improving compositions. The statutes of his professor- 
ship might also have enjoined upon this writer a very 
comprehensive range of subjects, more or less connected 
with the mind. His original scheme, as we have before 
seen, included Politics and Political Economy. Why it 
might not also have embraced Languages, Rhetoric, and 
Grammar, with equal propriety, we cannot divine. We 
are of opinion that the proper science of the mind, if 
treated with the requisite compactness, would be limited 
to the investigation and description of our mental opera- 
tions alone. Legitimately it cannot branch out into 



440 brown's philosophy of mind. 

Moral Philosophy, nor into Natural Theology. Each of 
these should form a system by itself. The philosopher 
of the mind ought, indeed, to trace the connections which 
his subject bears with these and all other sciences. But 
he has no particular business with erecting systems of 
moral, theological, political, or historical philosophy. 
For instance, he may, with Dr. Brown, attempt to inves- 
tigate the true nature of Moral Obligation. This is a 
sentiment of the mind. But as a mental philosopher, his 
task stops there. He departs from his particular sphere, 
when he proceeds to enumerate and enforce the personal, 
social, political, and religious duties arising out of our 
sense of moral obligation, since he thus encroaches on 
the real domain of the moral philosopher. 

Among the inconveniences to which the form of pos- 
thumous lectures subjects this work, are the innumera- 
ble recapitulations and repetitions which everywhere 
occur. Probably all the leading ideas and arguments 
are stated, to a greater or less extent, three times over ; 
and many of them even more. So that, were the Lec- 
tures reduced to a regular treatise, and these repetitions 
omitted, we should have a book little exceeding in size 
two thirds of the present. It should be remembered, 
however, that what is thus sometimes an annoyance in 
perusal, must have been attended with some advantages 
to those who originally had the privilege of hearing the 
Lecturer. And even now, the reader will find much as- 
sistance in comprehending and appreciating the author's 
arguments, by studying the recapitulations, in which for- 
mer statements are frequently placed in better points of 
view, and altogether new considerations are sometimes 
presented. Nor, on the whole, do we regret that the 



brown's thilosophy of mind. 441 

identical Lectures themselves have been published as 
they were delivered, with all those little incidental ap- 
peals to .the honor and good feelings of the students, 
those occasional compliments to the author's colleagues 
in office, and those other allusions to circumstances of 
time and place, which take much from the abstract na- 
ture of the work, and invest it somewhat with the charm 
of local reality. 

Although, as we before intimated, our author's style is 
the very opposite to the sententious, yet the vastness of 
his philosophy, and acuteness of his mind, have caused 
him to scatter many weighty maxims throughout these 
Lectures. We subjoin a few as morsels for reflection. 

" Science is the classification of relations." 

" The form of bodies is their relation to each other in space, — • 
the power of bodies is their relation to each other in time." 

" The power of God is not anything different from God." 

" The philosophy of the mind and the philosophy of matter 
agree, in this respect, that our knowledge is, in both, confined to 
the mere phenomena." 

" We pay Truth a very easy homage, when we content ourselves 
with despising her adversaries." 

" The difficulty of ascertaining precisely whether it be truth 
which we have attained, is in many cases much greater than the 
dilficulty of the actual attainment." 

" Philosophy is not the mere passive possession of knowledge ; 
it is, in a much more important respect, the active exercise of 
acquiring it." 

" Happiness, though necessarily involving present pleasure, is 
the direct or indirect, and often the very distant, result of feelings 
of every kind, pleasurable, painful, and indifferent." 

" When absolute discovery is not allowed, there is left a proba- 
bility of conjecture, of which even Philosophy may justly avail 
herself without departing from her legitimate province." 



442 brown's philosophy of mind. 

" To know the mind well, is to know its weaknesses as well as 
its powers." 

" There is always in man a redundant facility of mistake, be- 
yond our most liberal allowance." 

" All the sequences of phenomena are mysterious, or none 
are so." 

"National ridicule is always unjust in degree." 

" If we had been incapable of considering more than two events 
together, we probably never should have invented the word time." 

" That men should not agree in opinion, is a part of the very 
laws of intellect, on which the simplest phenomena of thought 
depend." 

" Objects, and the relations of objects, — these are all which 
reasoning involves." 

Three or four Lectures are occupied in giving the sub- 
stance of the author's doctrine of Cause and Eftect. It 
is an objection to the doctrine, when urged in his broad 
and unqualified manner, that it must tend to the discour- 
agement of scientific inquiry. In pressing his particular 
views, he unguardedly represents it as a fruitless task to 
search for any other cause of a given effect, than the ob- 
vious and apparent one. But this would keep us back 
in the ignorance of infancy. The author could not have 
intended such a conclusion ; but he should have provided 
better against it. Another thought that has struck us, 
in our perusal of these arguments, is, that they do not 
come much short of asserting, that the Deity himself 
cannot know why a particular cause produces its im- 
mediate effect. One more remark connected with this 
topic. When Dr. Brown asserts, that nothing can exist 
in nature but all the substances that exist in nature, 
what would he say of motion ? Is this nothing, or is it 
something ? If it be something, can it be called a sub- 



brown's philosophy of mind. 443 

stance? In short, the existence of motion, particularly 
spontaneous motion, though more intimately connected 
than any other phenomenon with this subject, and per- 
haps involving its essential difficulty, receives not in these 
speculations its due share of notice. 

The author loses himself in a criticism on Hume, at 
the end of the thirty-fourth Lecture. Hume does, not 
speak of the annihilation of an idea, as Dr. Brown rep- 
resents him, but of the idea of annihilation. This mis- 
take destroys the whole reasoning. 

We were disappointed in seeing no attempts to draw 
the characteristic lines of distinction between man and 
the brute creation. The subject is nowhere hinted at. 
It was admirably adapted to the peculiar powers of the 
author. He does not even encounter the obvious objec- 
tion, that most of his arguments for the immortality of 
the soul would as well apply to faithful Tray as to his 
master. 

We are not satisfied with the liberties everywhere 
taken in quoting the English poets. Scarcely a passage 
from them occurs, that is not altered, apparently with a 
direct intention, though, we are not always fortunate 
enough to perceive, with a happier adaptation to the 
subject in hand. 

From the author's ambition to say something of every 
subject more or less connected with his particular science, 
we were surprised that he has interwoven no remarks 
upon Delirium, Hypochondriasis, Liberty and Necessity, 
and a few others. An evident vein of Necessitarianism 
runs through all his speculations. That doctrine may 
be pretty directly deduced from his views of Cause and 
Effect, as well as from his favorite statements of the op- 



444 brown's philosophy of mind. 

erations of the mind. Amidst his loftiest declamations, 
upon the immortality and other attributes of the soul, 
we never hear a word of its freedom, although such a 
topic would have thrown a characteristic lustre on many 
a splendid paragraph. 

Perhaps it may be wrong to assert, that the author 
was under obligations to the late Dr. Cogan, as that gen- 
tleman's name, unaccountably in any view, is alluded 
to nowhere in the Lectures. Yet it cannot be denied 
that a strong general coincidence exists between the two 
writers in their treatment of the Passions and Emotions, 
and several ethical questions, and particularly in regard 
to the final causes of the actual arrangement of many 
mental phenomena. 

Dr. Brown, more frequently than any other writer, 
goes back to infancy, childhood, and savage life, for the 
decision of philosophical points. 

He seems to have possessed little sense of the ludi- 
crous. He never undertakes of himself to combat an 
error with satire. When he has need of this weapon, 
he constantly resorts to large quotations from Martinus 
Scriblerus, or Fontenelle. There is in this respect a 
striking contrast between him and Dr. Campbell, whose 
ridicule was as irresistible as his serious argument. 

We were going on to particularize our favorite Lec- 
tures, and to transcribe abundance of other pencil-marks 
with which we have cumbered the margins of the au- 
thor's pages; but there is no end to this kind of critical 
chitchat, and we forbear. 



1825. 



THE MAN OF EXPEDIENTS. 

^OLTa S' oXXore [xeu TTpoaB' .... oXXor' oma-dev. 

Homer's //., E. 595. 

" All means they use, to all expedients run." 

Crabbe. 
"It is a fine subject. 

"Button-holes! there is something lively in the very idea of them, — 
and trust me, when I get among them, — you gentry with gray beards, 
look as grave as you will, — I '11 make merry work with my button-holes. 
I shall have them all to myself, — 't is a maiden subject, — I shall run foul 
of no man's wisdom or fine sayings in it." — Tristram Shandi/. 

The Man of Expedients is he who, never providing 
for the little mishaps and stitch-droppings with which 
this mortal life is pestered, and too indolent or too ig- 
norant to repair them in the proper way, passes his days 
in inventing a succession of devices, pretexts, substi- 
tutes, plans, and commutations, by the help of which he 
thinks he appears as well as other people. 

Thus the man of expedients may be said only to half 
live ; he is the creature of outside, the victim of emer- 
gencies, whose happiness often depends on the posses- 
sion of a pin, or the strength of a button-hole. 

Shade of Theophrastus ! spirit of La Bruyere ! assist 
me to describe him. 

In his countenance, you behold marks of anxiety and 
contrivance, the natural consequence of his shiftless 

38 



446 THE MAN OF EXPEDIENTS. 

mode of life. The internal workings of his soul are 
generally a compound of cunning and the heart-ache. 
One half of his time he is silent, languid, indolent; the 
other half he moves, bustles, and exclaims, " What 's to 
be done now ? " His whole aim is to live as near as 
possible to the very verge of propriety. His business 
is all slightingly performed, and when a transaction is 
over he has no confidence in his own effectiveness, but 
asks, though in a careless manner, " Will it do ? Will 
it do ? '' 

Look throughout the various professions and char- 
acters of life. You will there see men of expedients 
darting, and shifting, and glancing, like fishes in the 
stream. We will give a few tests by which they may 
be recognized. If a merchant, the man of expedients 
borrows incontinently at two per cent a month ; if a 
sailor, he stows his hold with jury-masts, rather than 
ascertain if his ship be seaworthy ; if a visitor of those 
he dislikes, he is called out before the evening has half 
expired ; if a musician, he scrapes on a fiddle-string of 
silk ; if an actor, he takes his stand within three feet of 
the prompter; if a poet, he makes fault rhyme with 
ought, and look with spoke; if a reviewer, he fills up 
three quarters of his article with extracts from the writer 
whom he abuses ; if a divine, he leaves ample room in 
every sermon for an exchange of texts ; if a physician, 
he is often seen galloping at full speed, nobody knows 
where ; if a debtor, he has a marvellous acquaintance 
with short corners and dark alleys ; if a printer, he is 
adroit at scabharding ; if a collegian, he commits Euclid 
and Locke to memory without understanding them, inter- 
lines his Greek, and writes themes equal to the Rambler. 



THE MAN OF EXPEDIENTS. 447 

But it is in the character of a general scholar, that the 
man of expedients most shines. He ranges through all 
the arts and sciences — in Cyclopaedias. He acquires a 
most thorough knowledge of classical literature — from 
translations. He is very extensively read — in title- 
pages. He obtains an exact acquaintance of authors — 
from reviews. He follows all literature up to its source 
— in tables of contents. His researches are indefatiga- 
ble — into indexes. He quotes memoriter with astonish- 
ing facility — the Dictionary of Quotations ; and his 
bibliographical familiarity is miraculous — with Dibdin. 

We are sorry to say, that our men of expedients are 
to be sometimes discovered in the region of morality. 
There are those who claim the praise of a good action, 
when they have acted merely from convenience, incli- 
nation, or compulsion. There are those who make a 
show of industry, when they are set in motion only by 
avarice ; there are those who are quiet and peaceable, 
only because they are sluggish. There are those who 
are sagely silent, because they have not one idea; ab- 
stemious, from repletion ; patriots, because they are am- 
bitious; spotless, because there is no temptation. 

Again, let us look at the man of expedients in argu- 
ment. His element is the sophism. He is at home in 
a circle. His forte, his glory, is the petitio principii. 
Often he catches at your words, and not at your ideas. 
Thus, if you are arguing that light is light, and he 
happens to be (as it is quite likely he will) on the 
other side of the question, he snatches at your phrase- 
ology, and exclaims. Did you ever weigh it? Some- 
times he answers you by silence. Or if he pretends to 
anything like a show of fair reasoning, he cultivates a 



448 THE MAN or EXPEDIENTS. 

certain species of argumentative obliquity, that defies 
the acutest logic. When you think you have him in a 
corner, he is gone, — he has slipped through some hole of 
an argument, which you hoped was only letting in the 
light of conviction. In vain you attempt to fix him, — 
it is putting your finger on a flea. 

But let us come down a little lower into life. Who 
appears so well and so shining in a ball-room as the 
man of expedients ? Yet his small-clothes are bor- 
rowed, and as for his knee-buckles, — about as ill- 
matched as if one had belonged to his hat and the 
other to a galoche^ — to prevent their difference being 
detected, he stands sideways to his partner. Never- 
theless, the circumstance makes him the more viva- 
cious dancer, since, by the rapidity of his motions, he 
prevents a too curious examination by the spectators. 

Search farther into his dress. You will find that he 
very genteelly dangles 07ie glove. There are five pins 
about him, and as many buttons gone, or button-holes 
broken. His pocket-book is a newspaper. His fingers 
are his comb, and the palm of his hand his clothes- 
brush. He conceals his antiquated linen by the help of 
close garments, and adroitly claps a bur on the hole 
in his stocking while walking to church. 

Follow him home. Behold his felicitous knack of 
metamorphosing all kinds of furniture into all kinds of 
furniture. A brick constitutes his right andiron, and a 
stone his left. His shovel stands him in lieu of tongs. 
His bellows is his hearth-brush, and a hat his bellows, 
and that too borrowed from a broken window-pane. 
He shaves himself without a looking-glass, by the sole 
help of imagination. He sits down on a table. His 



THE MAN OF EXPEDIENTS. 449 

fingers are his snuffers. He puts his candlestick into a 
chair ; — that candlestick is a decanter ; — that decanter 
was borrowed ; — that borrowing was without leave. 
He drinks wine out of a tumbler. A fork is his cork- 
screw. His wineglass he converts into a standish. 

Very ingenious is he in the whole business of writing 
a letter. For that purpose he makes use of three eighths 
of a sheet of paper. His knees are his writing-desk, 
his rule is a book-cover, and his pencil a spoon-handle. 
He mends his pen with a pair of scissors. He dilutes 
his ink with water till it is reduced to invisibility. He 
uses ashes for sand. He seals his letter with the shreds 
and relics of his wafer-box. His seal is a pin. 

When he takes a journey, his whip-lash — But I shall 
myself be a man of expedients, if I fill ten pages with 
these minute details. 

O reader ! if you have smiled at any parts of the fore- 
going representation, let it be to some purpose. There 
is no fault we are all so apt to indulge, as that into 
which we are pushed by the ingenuity of indolence.' 



1818. 



38* 



DESULTORY THOUGHTS ON LEXICOG- 
RAPHY AND LEXICONS. 



Lexicons being the right-hand, or rather the very eye- 
sight, of the scholar, all pertinent discussion in regard to 
them should have a certain interest. Lexicography is, 
in fact, well entitled to be raised to the dignity of a 
science. In order to create and advance it, copious in- 
ductions might be formed from works of the past labor- 
ers in this field, of every age and nation. The successive 
developments and improvements, which from time to 
time have been introduced into the art, would contribute 
further materials. Other aids might be derived from the 
observations suggested to scientific inquirers by the na- 
ture of language, and from the obvious uses, of various 
kinds, to which lexicons may be applied. 

If such a science could be constructed, it would form 
a foundation for far more useful and complete diction- 
aries than we have yet known. I am acquainted with 
no essay or treatise which aims to place Lexicography 
on a scientific basis. My present purpose is not so 
ambitious. I propose merely to throw out a few desul- 
tory suggestions, that have occurred within my own 
limited experience, in the hope of eliciting, from better- 
instructed quarters, contributions to a subject so wide- 
reaching and prolific. 



LEXICOGRAPHT. 451 

To say nothing of other languages, have we at this 
moment a model English Dictionary, such as might be 
fairly demanded by the general scholar, or the ordinary 
reader ? In the first place, what we require in a perfect 
dictionary for ordinary purposes is, I think, neither a 
bald glossary on the one hand, nor a cyclopaedia on the 
other, but something of an intermediate character. In 
this respect, Webster's Dictionary is admirable. It con- 
tains many thousand articles, in which the thing repre- 
sented by a word is not merely expressed by a synonyme, 
or even by a neat, adequate, logical definition, but a brief 
description tells you something of the nature and rela- 
tions of the thing itself. This is particularly the case 
with objects in natural history, with the technical lan- 
guage of the law, and with terms in the various arts and 
trades. Webster is, also, very happy in pointing out 
instances of the several shades of meaning w^hich the 
same word sustains in its different applications. Doubt- 
less his book will be susceptible, with the lapse of time, 
of continued improvements in both these particulars. 
Perhaps he carries to a fault the descriptive habit I have 
mentioned, and sometimes, in this respect, causes his 
Dictionary to approximate too nearly to the character of 
a cyclopeedia. His rule of giving the derivations of his 
words is excellent, however he may have failed of ac- 
curacy in particular instances, or fallen short of the mod- 
ern stage of development in scientific etymology. But 
all dictionaries ought to present the etymologies of 
words, as often the best means of enabling the student 
to judge for himself as to their true signification. 

A satisfactory dictionary of the English language 
should give, systematically, the pronunciation of the 



452 LEXICOGRAPHY. 

words, alter the manner of Walker. This is particu- 
larly desirable for the use of foreigners. It is not suffi- 
cient to show how the roots of derivative words are pro- 
nounced. The foreigner should at once be enabled to 
perceive the sound of each individual vocable. I am 
aware of the great difficulty of carrying out this whole 
system to universal satisfaction. Something like the 
phonetic signs, which have attracted so much notice in 
England and America, would seem to be available for 
this purpose. In that system, each articulate utterance 
of the human voice, at least every elementary sound 
employed in the English language, amounting, as it is 
said, to thirty-six (short, I should think, of the reality), is 
represented by a distinct character. The supporters of 
the system are very sanguine in the hope of substituting 
it for our existing orthography, and thus producing a 
universal change in the drapery of literature, whether in 
writing or typography. If, however, they can succeed 
in employing it only for the purpose above suggested, 
namely, to teach the true pronunciation of established 
current words in the existing modes of spelling, they will 
probably render it as useful and popular as it is capable 
of being made.* 

We need a system of this kind for dictionaries of the 
French language more than of any other. It is impossible 
for any combination of our alphabet to represent the 
nasal sounds, so peculiarly enunciated by that nation, 
in distinction from every other on earth. Whether those 
sounds can be traced to the Frank or the Celtic element 

* Since this article was written, a work has been published in Cincinnati, 
entitled " Smalley's American Phonetic Dictionary of the English Lan- 
guage." 8vo. pp. 770. 



i 



LEXICOGRAPHY. 453 

of that people, I am not aware. In their purity, so far 
from being disagreeable, they are ranked by some among 
the noblest and most musical sounds uttered by man. 
Some writers suppose them to be identical with the ut- 
terances recorded of a very ancient tribe of Etruscans, 
who were said to have emitted a vocal sound resembling 
the clarion cry of an eagle. How far different from that, 
or from anything heard within the precincts of Paris, are 
those villanous attempts to represent the nasal tones of 
France in such dictionaries as that of Meadows, where 
page after page is loaded with abortions like kong-pang'- 
sai, to illustrate the true pronunciation of compenser ! 
How must such representations mislead the learner! 
Might he not as well give a downright English pronun- 
ciation to the French vocables before him ? Thousands 
of pupils, all over the English and American worlds, may 
at this moment fancy that they are attaining a correct 
French pronunciation from this Mr. Meadows, when, in 
fact, they are learning barbarisms, worse than nothing, 
and enough to agonize every genuine Frenchman who 
hears them. If, now, some distinctive character could 
be adopted, instead of these deplorable ongs and ungSj 
which should represent the nasal sounds, and if the pupil 
were taught that it is impossible for any alphabetic com- 
bination to express them, but that they must be imparted 
originally by oral communication alone, and then men- 
tally connected with the characters, a great advance 
might be made in conveying the knowledge of French 
pronunciation. 

But supposing some phonetic system of this kind 
adopted for all dictionaries, another Alpine difficulty 
immediately arises before the practical lexicographer, — 



454 LEXICOGRAPHY. 

I mean, the establishment of an authoritative standard 
of pronunciation. That Walker has been extruded from 
the throne on which he sat with absolute sway for thirty- 
years, is no fair ground for concluding that no man or 
body of men may rightfully aspire to wield the sceptre 
that has fallen from his hands.* There certainly can be 
laid down some general principles of pronunciation, such, 
for instance, as would be that of shortening the ante- 
penult in a derivative word of three syllables, when the 
same syllable is long in the corresponding primitive; as 
patron^ patronage^ &c. By the way, I observe that this 
rule, though much may be said in its favor, is not 
practically recognized by Worcester, Smart, or Webster. 
Whether they are right or wrong in this particular, 
a body of principles can be established, which would 
organize and fix, to a very great extent, the general pro- 
nunciation of our language. Then, however, would 
come the exceptions and anomalies, to be upheld by in- 
veterate custom or by the usage of good society, or per- 
haps to be strangled by the bold hand of the lexicog- 
rapher himself, and forced to give w^ay to more legitimate 
and analogical forms of speech. 

But where is the man competent to this whole task ? 
Where is the man who, having told me whether I must 
say purfect ox perr-fect^ shall instantaneously receive from 
me as implicit obedience as the tax-gatherer whom the 
legislature sends to my door ? I long for such arbitrary 
rule. I sigh for the repose and certainty of so benign a 



* The present standard in England is believed to be Smart, editor of the 
dictionary known as " Walker Remodelled." He is said to have been 
teacher of elocution to Queen Victoria. 



LEXICOGRAPHY. 455 

despotism, as much as I desire the Papal infallibility, 
which shall direct me, amidst the sinkings of extreme 
unction, whether to say, I die^ or I a7n dying I 

Now, to establish such an authority, we naturally turn 
our thoughts first to the political, legislative powers in 
any country. Could they effect the object desired? No. 
Not all the wealth and political power of the state is 
equal to the task of giving currency to a new expression, 
or exterminating an old one. Even although we could 
attract the attention of any legislature to such a project, 
— which we could not do if we tried, — we should find 
these matters quite beyond their authority. They cannot 
even legislate a coin out of circulation. I receive almost 
every day, even from our great federal post-office, those 
old English Brummagem coppers, which should have 
disappeared half a century ago, but which still retain 
their vitality, and more than their intrinsic value, in spite 
of laws, and mints, and Presidents, and national pride 
and jealousies. And even so, and more also, would it 
be with winged ivords, which, flying aloft in disdain and 
defiance from the grasp of power, nestle down on the 
lips, in the habits, in the hearts, around the hearths, and 
in the markets of the whole people, among whom they 
are cherished as an essential, ingrained portion of the 
national existence itself. Look at the unavailing attempt 
of the affluent, dictatorial Harpers to alter the orthogra- 
phy of a few words in American books, in conformity 
with some of the peculiarities of Webster. With all 
their millions embarked in the book-trade, with their 
tempests of steam, and mountains of stereotype, with 
their monopoly of whole markets, they can scarcely con- 
strain or influence a single press besides their own to 



456 LEXICOGRAPHY. 

omit even a little / in the word traveller* Noah Web- 
ster himself had tried the experiment on a large scale, 
some forty years ago, in an attempted radical improve- 
ment of the whole orthography of the English language. 
His example was followed by a single person only, — 
the late lamented Grimke of South Carolina ; and the 
valuable writings which they both published in that 
new drapery, fell almost dead-born from the press, in 
consequence simply of their outlandish, repulsive garb. 
The retaining by Webster, in his great Dictionary, of a 
few of these new-fangled peculiarities, constitutes, I con- 
ceive, the prominent defect of that excellent work. Al- 
though he might have had good reasons for altering the 
ordinary spelling of some words, yet his reforms were 
only partial and capricious. If he began this task, he 
should have made thorough work of it. But, as we have 
seen, he had tried the thorough work and failed. No 
valid reason could be assigned on his part why his few 
changes in orthography should not have been multiplied, 
so as to reach the full claims of the phonetic system 
itself, which requires the spelling of every word to cor- 
respond uniformly to its oral enunciation. Even Macau- 
lay, in his letter to the Harpers, while he acquiesced in 
these innovations in their edition of his history, had not 
a word to advance in their favor, but passed their merits 
over, in ominous, half-smiling, mystifying silence, al- 
though they were the main topic in the controversy be- 
fore him, between the Harpers and the other publishers. 
The true principle on this subject I take to be, that 



* I refer to the book-press. The New York Tribune, with its vast cir- 
culation, adopts "Webster's later orthography. 



LEXICOGRAPHY. 457 

lexicographers, as such, ought rarely of themselves to 
initiate any improvements or alterations in the current 
forms of a language, written or vocal, but only to be 
faithful reporters of what is existing and recognized. 
When general custom has stamped with its seignorial 
approbation any new form introduced by individuals, 
the lexicographer's duty is to range it in the cabinet of 
his faithful columns. Webster, by his attempted innova- 
tions in orthography, has transcended this rule, and so 
far failed in his function, since he did not succeed in 
carrying the public with him; thus rendering his Dic- 
tionary, in this respect, the dictionary of one man, in- 
stead of the dictionary of a nation. 

Such, then, being the powerlessness of any single 
man, or body of men, however strong in wealth or po- 
litical authority, to enforce modes of orthography and 
pronunciation on the public acceptance, as well as t*" 
authenticate the employment of individual words, might 
we not look with hope of success to some moral or in- 
tellectual authority, to whom should be referred the 
verbal usages and exigencies of a country ? I am un- 
able to state with accuracy the influences, in this point 
of view, which were exerted by the French Academy 
in France, and the Academia della Crusca in Italy. But 
I have sometimes thought, that if there could be a stand- 
ing convention of scholars, assembling annually, or per- 
haps oftener, who should be delegated from all our col- 
leges, universities, courts of law, ecclesiastical bodies, 
literary and scientific societies, and other kindred insti- 
tutions, Avhose duty it should be to discuss and decide 
every doubtful point in orthography, etymology, syntax, 
prosody, rhyme, orthoepy, purity, obsoleteness, new pro- 

39 



458 LEXICOGRAPHY. 

prieties, substantive value of individual terms, and the 
like, I, for one, as a good citizen of the literary republic, 
would yield obedience to their decrees, even though pro- 
nounced against my own philological conscience. I 
have mentioned rhyme among the objects of consider- 
ation, because it is very well known that usages and 
authorities in regard to it are subject to as many vicis- 
situdes as in respect to anything else. Rhymes which 
were constantly employed by Pope and Dryden as legiti- 
mate, would not at present be tolerated, and are regard- 
ed in no better light than mere assonances.* Some are 
still dubiously endured. But the tendency, both of the 
poetical and public ear, is evidently towards exactness 
of rhyme. The world seems to say to the trembling 
poet. If you will inflict rhyme upon us, let it indeed be 
rhyme, the genuine article, and of no mongrel descrip- 
tion. Thus the range of poetical license is limited, and 
whole pages and volumes of innocent verses are sacri- 
ficed in advance. Already the bard shudders in fear of 
being bereaved of such facile but inexact resemblances 
as give and thrive^ bough and oive^ improve and love, past 
and taste, fear and there, afford and lord. 

Now, if a convention of the kind just supposed could 
be established and generally submitted to, how easy, 
comparatively, would be the task of the lexicographer ! 
He would but have to register the decrees of that literary 
parliament. His function would be simply that of the 
codifier. Then how free from perplexity would writers 

* Take as an example the closing couplet of Pope's Temple of Fame : — 

" Unblemished let me live, or die unknown ; 
Oh ! grant an honest fame, or grant me none ! " 



LEXICOGRAPHY. 459 

and speakers, both in public and private, pass their re- 
sponsible existence ! For as Talleyrand used to class 
blunders in a more atrocious category than crimes, so 
have I known persons, who, I verily believe, were almost 
as charitable to a moral obliquity as to a mispronounced 
syllable or a suspected solecism. How readily, too, 
might those who, like myself, are passing off the stage, 
guard themselves from indulging in antiquenesses and 
obsoletenesses of phrase or enunciation, which might 
have been the height of fashionable propriety in our 
youth, but which now, perhaps, extort the same smile 
from our juvenile hearers as we once bestowed on cimi- 
lar infelicities in our too-little-venerated predecessors ; — 
even as the smooth-shaven chin probably excites among 
our juniors the same wistful speculation as did, in our 
own young imaginations, the huge, bushy, phenomenal 
wigs of those septuagenaries who glided off the stage of 
our early life. 

But, ah me ! in the proposal submitted above, am I 
not dreaming fondly of an impossibility ? How could 
we secure steadfastness and consistency in the very 
legislative tribunal I am imagining ? " Quis custodiet 
ipsos custodes ? " How prevent dissensions and devia- 
tions among those subjected to their sway ? If I mis- 
take not, the history of the two foreign academies above 
mentioned, with their surrounding contemporaries, is 
replete with accounts of parties and factions in all mat- 
ters subjected to their jurisdiction. And so it might be 
with us. Boileau, in his wonderfully ingenious satire, 
Sur V Equivoque^ represents the peace of the whole 
world, and the high interests of orthodox Christianity, as 
having been at times suspended on some pun or word 



460 LEXICOGKAPHY. 

of doubtful meaning. In like manner, might not the 
peace of our own America, already too often disturbed 
by our characteristic wordiness, be still more jeoparded, 
if the matters in dispute were veritable words ? 

On all these accounts, I am constrained to confess, 
that, since there is as yet no tolerable science of lexicog- 
raphy, and since the art and task of the lexicographer 
are environed by so many practical difficulties and im- 
palpable perplexities, I feel incompetent to present a 
satisfactory estimate of any particular lexicon or dic- 
tionary, and can but throw a few empirical random ob- 
servations into the general reservoir of ideas on the sub- 
ject. 

Webster's Dictionary must be acknowledged by all 
as an inestimable treasure. What a dear friend in need 
it is, whenever we meet with any sort of word which we 
hardly fancied to exist in the heavens above or the earth 
beneath ! It is not twenty years since the London 
Quarterly Review pronounced the number of terms in 
any language, necessary for the exigencies of modern 
civilization, to be only about forty thousand. But be- 
hold, Webster and Worcester have more than doubled 
the number, and who will venture to deny the possible 
or probable utility of any of their articles ? Yet, to 
evince how much the task of compiling such a work 
transcends the powers of any single man, however 
industrious and eminent he may be as a philologist, I 
will here mention that my own very limited reading, 
during the last twenty-five years, has supplied me with 
a list of one hundred and eighty-five words which are 
wanting in Webster's quarto of 1828. How to account 
for such a deficiency will, I apprehend, appear difficult 



LEXICOGRAPHY. 461 

to ray readers, especially when it is remembered that his 
assistant in preparing the work for publication was the 
poet Percival, the range of whose erudition is scarcely 
surpassed among the living scholars of any country. A 
few of the omissions were probably accidental, but by 
far the greater number must have occurred through the 
limited knowledge or the still stranger intention of the 
compilers. Before the author's death, I communicated 
to him my list of missing words as far as it had then 
grown, — a circumstance which may in part account 
for the appearance of over one hundred of them in the 
revised editions. The following are among those still 
wanting. I record them chiefly as matter of curiosity, 
and would not be understood to vouch for the entire 
list, or for the uniform accuracy of the annexed defini- 
tions. 

Arreed^ — used by Milton. 

Barbican^ in fortification. 

Bothy, a hut or small building. 

Branchial. 

Busheller, one who repairs garments for tailors. 

Calavance, a fruit. 

Calceolus, a flower. 

Carapace, perhaps the same as Callipash. 

Cassoon, an architectural decoration. 

Clabbed. 

Clinker, refuse of coal. 

Clinker-built, in marine architecture. 

Clow, in draining. 

Conacre, in husbandry. 

Crinkets, a disease. 

CruiveSy fishing implements. 

39=* 



462 LEXICOGRAPHY. 

Cult^ a worship. — Vestiges of Creation. 

Debmised, in heraldry. 

Dian, — not for Diana. — Andrew Marveli's Poenns. 

Dipod, in prosody. 

Dispasted, in physiology or surgery. 

Dochmaic, in prosody. 

Doller^ a machine for lifting. 

Dyslogism^ false reasoning. 

The Fancy^ sporting world. 

Feiiars^ a kind of tenants. 

Finite, applied to verbs. 

Flexion, the same as Inflection, in grammar, 

Forefaulter. 

Gradine. 

Glittery, part of a soldier's equipment. 

Hobble, an instrument of confinement. 

Indicial, in arithmetic. 

Intarsiated, checkered ? 

Lagerstrcemia, a plant. 

Laura, a collection of separate cells, in distinction 
from a monastery. — Curzon's Monasteries of the Le- 
vant ; Lord Lindsay's Christian Art. 

Marrionate, in angling. 

Mill, to travel under water, as a whale or fish. 

Mosarab, Spanish Moor? 

Navvy, an English laborer. 

Obsequience, — used in the London Quarterly Review. 

Odic, — the Odic Force of Reichenbach. 

Ozone, in chemistry. 

Parwmiac, in prosody. 

Paid, an Italian coin. 

PeschitOy an ancient copy of the Scriptures, as Syrian 
Pescbito. 



LEXICOGRAPHY. 463 

Pinder. — George a Green was, in olden time, the Fin- 
der of the town of Vv^akefield. 

Predella, in Romish church-furniture. 

Previous Question, in deliberative bodies. 

Reiver, a robber. 

Roister, — London Quarterly Review, No. 180, p. 249. 

Sarcel, in falconry. 

Senachy, — in London Quarterly Review, June, 1841, 
Art. Whewell. 

Sennet, a musical term in Shakespeare. 

Stub, to prepare wool for spinning. 

Smolt, a young salmon. 

Sockdologer, — used in Mrs. Howe's "Passion-Flow- 
ers." 

Spinney, in hunting. 

Theotisc. 

Toril,' — in Andrew Marvell's poems. 

Triptic, a utensil employed in a monastery or church. 

Water-brash, a disease. 

Willock, a sea-fowl. — Kingsley's Glaucus. 

Zymotic, a class of diseases. 

The great rival of Webster's Dictionary, in our country, 
is Worcester's Universal and Critical Dictionary, pub- 
lished in royal octavo, in 1846. It is a monument of learn 
ing and ability, and must be considered as indispensable 
to every well-furnished library. I understand that in 
New England it is recognized as a paramount authority. 
By the kindness of the author, I have been favored with 
an opportunity of examining the valuable manual, pub- 
lished in 1855, compiled from his great work. Of course, 
it cannot present the vast variety of shades and modifica- 
tions of meaning exhibited in the significations given by 



464 LEXICOGRAPHY. 

Webster, or in Worcester's own larger work ; but those 
which it gives are exceedingly full, compact, and intelligi- 
ble. Dr. Worcester's Dictionaries, hitherto published, are 
destitute of one valuable characteristic of the rival work, 
in withholding the etymologies of the words. But his 
latest abridgment possesses a new and redeeming fea- 
ture, in exhibiting the peculiar forces of nearly synony- 
mous expressions.* This must have cost the author 
much thought and labor, and evinces in its execution a 
high degree of discrimination and skill. The work, also, 
has the high recommendation of presenting the pronun- 
ciation of every word, on its face, without exception. In 
fact, vast care seems to have been expended on the de- 
partment of pronunciation, and it is hard to conceive of 
any authority, on that point, more complete or satisfac- 
tory. The adjuncts, prefixed and subjoined to the body 
of the work, are all appropriate to such a production, 
and must be very useful in the practice of daily literary 
life. Indeed, they suggest rich materials towards such a 
science of lexicography as has been insisted on in the 
former part of this essay. It is but fair to judge of the 
execution of any work according to its owmi plan and 
pretensions. Judged on this principle, very great merit 
must be assigned to Worcester's Dictionary. But per- 
haps a further approximation towards perfection is yet 

* The author must have experienced some diflficulty in devising a rightly 
descriptive title for his late work. 'He calls it "A Pronouncing, Explanatory, 
and Synonymous Dictionary," &c. Now a book which treats of synonymes 
can hardly be entitled on that account a synonymous book, as the word has 
generally been received. The occasion might have justified the daring crea- 
tion of some such new term as synonymic. But it seems the able author 
chooses to justify himself by the equally daring creation of a nevr dcjinition for 
synonymous, which he explains as sometimes signifying, Relating to synonymes. 



LEXICOGRAPHY. 465 

to be attained, by combining the plans of both Worces- 
ter's and Webster's. 

As an instance of the virtual impossibility of any one 
man's mastering and exhibiting the whole vocabulary of 
any language, I have already presented a list of the 
words omitted in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, so 
far as detected by the casual and limited reading of a 
single student, in the course of twenty-five years. On 
consulting Worcester's Universal and Critical Dictionary, 
I find that he supplies only five of Webster's omissions, 
given above ; namely. Bothy, Clinker, Dipod, Dochmaic, 
Obsequience ; — while, of my original list of 185 words, 
Webster has the following, which are not to be found in 
Worcester : — 

Alignment^ adjustment to a line. 

Antispast, in prosody. 

Catafalque J in funeral solemnities. 

Cob, clay mixed with straw. 

Cufic, ancient Arabic characters. 

Force, a water-fall. 

Gopher, the wood of the Ark. 

Intention, in surgery. 

Plant, of a tradesman. 

Proper, in heraldry. 

Quintet, in music. 

Septet, ditto. 

Stertorous, snoring. 

I feel sure (and I say it without any affectation) that 
my reading has been of a more limited extent than that 
of almost any man, of any literary pretension ; although 
to exact and careful reading, as far as it has gone, I am 
ready to confess. Now, if I, within my short range, 



466 LEXICOGKAPHY. 

have discovered so many omissions in these two indus- 
trious, faithful, and learned lexicographers, how large 
would probably be the catalogue, if one hundred of the 
most extensive readers in England and America had 
taken notes similar to mine? Doubtless, also, I have 
met with many other words in the same predicament, 
which I failed to verify or record. 

In early life, I commenced, and w^orked for some time, 
on a task which, if well and thoroughly executed, might 
result, I apprehended, in considerable literary utility. 
Other cares and necessities withdrew me from its con- 
tinued prosecution. The object was a classification of 
all the words in the English language, according to the 
various ideas which they represent. All epithets, for 
instance, implying good moral qualities, were arranged 
under one division, and those of the opposite kind under 
another. Words representing mental action, of any kind 
formed one class ; words representing bodily action, an- 
other ; words representing the bodily sensations, a third, 
&c. I can well conceive that writers and speakers may 
often be essentially aided by such a work, in the proper 
treatment of their themes. Fortunately, Roget's The- 
saurus of English Words and Phrases, constructed main- 
ly on the principle in question, has appeared. It consti- 
tutes, unquestionably, one of the richest treasure-houses 
of our vernacular philology. 

An abridgment of Webster, with its peculiarities in 
orthography, has been adopted for the public schools in 
the State of New York. How far this was effected by 
its essential merits, and how far by the overshadowing 
influence of the Harpers, I presume not to say. Wash- 
ington Irving has written and published a letter, com- 



LEXICOGRAPHY. 467 

plaining of a grossly unfair use made of his partial 
recommendation of the work. 

The struggle for public favor between Worcester's and 
"Webster's Dictionaries has been more or less active for 
some years past. Into the merits of that controversy, I 
do not propose further to enter ; but I cannot forbear re- 
marking upon the absurdity of charging Dr. Worcester 
with having borrowed from Webster's vocabulary. Who 
can charge another with stealing eirea Trrepoevra out of 
his battue, when the winged creatures themselves are wild 
game, flying all about the country, — animals /er<^ na- 
tures, in which no man can claim private property ? 

Richardson's Dictionary of the English Language is 
admirable for tracing the history of English words ; and 
is, therefore, peculiarly valuable to persons of philologi- 
cal tastes : it is little suited for ordinary purposes. 

Bat the highest hopes of the students of English 
undefiled are now fixed upon the appearance of the 
great Lexicon of the English tongue, announced by Dr. 
Worcester. He has, undoubtedly, brought to its prepara- 
tion unsurpassed industry, accuracy, capacity, and con- 
scientiousness ; and we may, with much confidence, look 
to its publication as the most promising means of gain- 
ing clear and consistent information as to the character, 
construction, derivations, meanings, and resources of the 
English language, which are likely to be enjoyed in our 
generation. Not the least important and interesting 
feature of this vast projected work will probably be the 
illustration, by neat and well-drawn cuts, of all those 
terms whose meanings can be rendered clearer by such 
accompaniments. Although illustrative designs have 
been more or less employed in books, both before and 



468 LEXICOGRAPHY. 

ever since the dawn of printing, yet their increasing use, 
at the present day, and the important place they now 
hold, are of auspicious omen for literature, as well as art. 
Clear, exact, copious, satisfactory, and often delightful 
conceptions of objects are thus imparted to the inquirer, 
who obtains by a glance what might otherwise cost him 
hours of research. The improvement in question consti- 
tutes a new era in verbal lexicography, and must go 
to enrich the science itself with a choice element. Of 
course, it cannot be claimed to have originated here. 
Setting aside technical glossaries, we believe that a 
recent English work, Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary, on 
the basis of Webster, has the honor of being the first 
" illustrated " dictionary of the English language. 

To make a transition from our own to the classical 
languages. It must be gratifying to Americans, that 
Pickering's Greek Lexicon and Leverett's Latin Lexi- 
con, prepared by the hands of two of our own country- 
men, are, or at least were at the time of their publica- 
tion, unsurpassed, even if equalled, by any other works 
of the kind. I have used them both from the beginning, 
and feel that I can almost say a Nunc diiniUis, whenever 
I lay them down. John Pickering, no doubt, was the 
most erudite man our country has ever produced. Of 
this fact the sketch of his life and attainments, executed 
and published, at the request of the American Academy 
of Arts and Sciences, by Judge White, of Salem, Mass., 
must establish a clear conviction. When shall we see 
the more formal and complete monument of his vast 
acquisitions and achievements, which was invoked by 
the hopes of Judge White in his admirable little memo- 
rial ? Pickering's Lexicon, in its matter, structure, and 



LEXICOGRAPHY. 469 

arrangement, is of extraordinary excellence. In reading 
the classic writers of Greece, one finds it a blessed help, 
pouring all desirable light, and distinguishing the exact 
shades of meaning in the very passages under examina- 
tion. Perhaps it is not so full and satisfactory for the 
Greek Testament, — not at all superseding the use of 
Schleusner. And even Schleusner, although a very great 
assistance, must not be depended upon without an inde- 
pendent exercise of one's own judgment, since his defi- 
nitions of words and classifications of meanings are ne- 
cessarily more or less tinged with the foregone conclu- 
sions of his own peculiar faith and views of the context. 
The English rival of Pickering's Ijexicon would be 
Donnegan's, — which I have seen subjected to some 
rather withering criticisms, — or perhaps Liddell and 
Scott's, which has been admirably reprinted, and in some 
respects edited, by Professor Drisler, of Columbia College, 
New York. This Lexicon embodies, to a great extent, 
the best results of modern criticism, up to the time of its 
publication (1846), and (as the highest compliment I 
can pay it, or any other Greek and English dictionary of 
foreign origin) is not unworthy of a place by the side oi 
the second edition of Pickering. Before procuring Pick- 
ering, my great aid in reading the Greek classics, when 
obliged to abandon Schrevelius, was a noble and splendid 
improvement of Budeeus's Thesaurus, printed in 1554. 
Since Pickering commenced his reign, the Budseus has 
slumbered very much on the shelf, though its assistance 
would probably be required if a kind destiny should 
ever lead me much amongst the Alexandrian writers and 
the Greek fathers. These matters stir up in my mind a 
pleasant reminiscence. Paying a visit once to the elder 

40 



470 LEXICOGRAPHY. 

President Adams, when he was between seventy and 
eighty years old, our talk, or rather his talk, as it swept 
over a very wide range of subjects, lighted at last upon 
Greek lexicons ; when up jumped the venerable sage, like 
a sprightly young man, and actually ran up stairs to his 
library, from which he brought down in his arms a huge 
folio Constanti?ie, which he exhibited as his favorite com- 
panion in his Greek studies. 

To all Greek lexicons I feel thankful, in contrast with 
all Latin dictionaries that I am acquainted with, inas- 
much as they give, in their alphabetical places, the vari- 
ous inflexions and irregular oblique cases of all words, 
as well as the original roots and leading forms. Why 
should it not be so in all sorts of vocabularies ? One 
valuable principle in our proposed science of lexicogra- 
phy would be, that every inflexion of a word at all 
irregular, or not obvious to the merest tyro, should be 
introduced in its place, as well as the root. For in- 
stance, in every Greek Lexicon, when I look for otcro), the 
future of ^epco, or for ojveyKa^ the perfect of the same 
word, I find them waiting for me as faithfully as the root 
4>epco itself. But in looking into a Latin dictionary, even 
into my favorite Leverett, for tuHj the perfect of fero, 
I find it absent, and I am driven back to my grammar 
knowledge of the word, if I wish to proceed any farther 
with tuli. In like manner, you will find el?, the second 
person of et/x/, in a Greek lexicon, but never es, the 
second person of sum, in the Latin dictionary, although 
the words precisely correspond in the two languages, 
and although the Latin es is more irregular than the 
Greek el?, and more difficult to be traced by one not well 
acquainted with the language. The same inconvenient 



LEXICOGRAPHY. 471 

practice, probably the relic of some antiquated pedantry, 
is also adopted in most dictionaries of modern foreign 
languages. I have been perplexed by it in using French, 
Italian, Spanish, German, and Danish dictionaries, and 
have often been obliged to hunt through the grammars 
of those languages for certain forms, which, if they had 
been inserted, as they ought to have been, in their alpha- 
betical places in the dictionaries, would have saved num- 
berless fragments of precious time in a life too short and 
crowded to be thus wasted. I am happy to say that 
most English dictionaries are free from this monstrous 
delinquency, and that Webster and Worcester respect 
the individuality of luent and gone as much as that of 
their radical go. 

The Latin Lexicon of Leverett professes to be chiefly 
compiled from the great work of the Italians Fac- 
ciolati and Forcellini, and from the German works of 
Scheller and Luenemann, of which it is a much slight- 
er modification than Pickering's Lexicon is of Schreve- 
lius. But in its translations, methodical arrangements, 
and accurate execution throughout, it shows consummate 
scholarship and industry. I cannot but feel something 
of the complacency of the sexton who " rang the bell " 
for the great orator, when I remember that two little 
boys who began the Latin grammar together, at the age 
of nine years, under my humble tuition in the morning 
of my own life, were Frederic P. Leverett of Boston, 
and William H. Furness of Philadelphia. 

Whenever our contemplated science of lexicography 
shall utter its decrees, let it abolish from its practical 
systems all such pedantry as, I am sorry to say, still ad- 
heres to Leverett, in confounding together in alphabe 



472 LEXICOGRAPHY. 

ical arrangement the letters / and JJ and also the letters 
Uand V. The truth is, there is now no more identity 
or affinity between J and J", or U and F, than between 
ikf and N. J is in all cases a vowel, and J is in all cases 
a consonant. So, respectively, with U and V. Why 
should the young be perplexed, and all ages be annoyed, 
by the unnecessary tribulation of distinguishing by an 
effort of memory what are really distinguished in the 
nature of things, and ought to be equally distinguished 
in the columns before their troubled eyes ? 

Let our imagined science also decree that Greek lexi- 
cons for proper use shall present their definitions in the 
vernacular language of the country where they are pub- 
lished. This will facilitate the study of that incompara- 
ble tongue far more than enough to counterbalance the 
little advantage gained by an increased knowledge of 
Latin, on the antiquated plan. 

In connection with this point, may I not suggest the 
inquiry, whether there has not been, in time past, and is 
not still, too much that is formal, superstitious, mechani- 
cal, and pedantic, in insisting that youth shall commence 
and pursue the study of a language with no other aid 
than the eternally twirled, tumbled, and dog-eared dic- 
tionary ? Is not this scheme as unnatural as it is un- 
necessary ? Does nature send the little bright and in- 
quisitive learner to a big vocabulary? Does she not 
immediately teach him words from the lips of a superior? 
I am therefore for teaching languages by the judicious 
but not exclusive use of translations, or at least of closely 
accompanying vocabularies, and copious, clear annota- 
tions, carried on from lesson to lesson. The quick and 
active memory of -youth demands something of this 



LEXICOGRAPHY. 473 

kind. The importance of saving time demands it. 
When a large foundation of knowledge is thus naturally 
supplied, then let the mind be disciplined, and the pow- 
ers exercised, by the study of pure originals and the 
use of the dictionary. In this way, I feel persuaded that 
less disgust at learning would be engendered than has 
darkened the annals of the past, far higher enjoyment 
secured, and a vastly greater amount of ripe scholarship 
developed. 

To revert for one moment to our main topic ; — I am 
happy to know that Professor Guenebault, who has re- 
sided for many years in Charleston, as an eminent teach- 
er of the French language, has long been engaged in a 
peculiar and (so far as I am informed) quite untrodden 
path of the field of lexicography.* He has compiled, 
and is soon to publish, a Vocabulary of such French 
words and phrases as have originated in cant, or slang, 
or some provincial or other idiosyncratical sources. Such 
a task, if executed with the industry, tact, and fidelity 
which the public have a right to expect, will unquestion- 
ably furnish many curious and valuable results in the 
study of philology and social science. 

* I speak here of French literature only. The English works of Francis 
Grose, among others in the same department, are well known. 



1855. 



40* 



A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT IN SALEM. 



BY AN ADMIRER OF 

I HAD completed my Northern summer tour, and was 
lingering through a few days at the Tremont House, in 
Boston, for the arrival of a party of friends from Canada, 
in order that we might all start together on the journey 
to our Southern homes. To beguile the tedious and 
vacant hours of my delay, I had resorted to the various 
expedients which suggest themselves to a solitary stran- 
ger. I had made numerous excursions on foot to the 
enchanting environs of the American Athens. I had 
paid a sweet and solemn pilgrimage of several hours to 
Mount Auburn. I had gone up to the dome of the 
State-House, on two different sunshiny afternoons, and 
drank a full flow of delight (no less intense for arising 
from a twice-told tale) from the wonderful landscape 
around, more gorgeous and varied than an Achilles- 
shield, — those distant, slumbering, yet shining towns, 
— those hundred steeples, scattered, like the religion they 
represent, in all quarters of the horizon, — those gradu- 
ated hills far off at the south, along which I could not 

^ Soon after^ the appearance of Hawthorne's " Twice-Told Tales," the 

author of the present volume, desirous of rendering his testimony to the 

excellent promise they contained, published the above jeu-d^esprit, in the 
assumed character of a Southern Planter. 



A DAT OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 475 

help fancying that Neptune sometimes ascended, as up 
a flight of stairs, when, tired of the storms and calms of 
his own ocean, he was desirous of refreshing himself 
with a glimpse of the works of the demigod man, — 
that beautiful harbor with its small green islands, — the 
winding, glistening Charles, with its bridges, and bays, 
and causeways, — the venerable group of edifices at 
Cambridge, glowing amidst the picture, as if Learning 
and Religion had said to each other. Sit we down here 
together and form a part of the bright glories of this 
mysterious emblem- world, — that vast city at my feet, 
with its palaces, halls, camera-obscura squares, winding 
streets, autumn-brown gardens, mirrored roofs and tow- 
ers, leafless forests of dim-receding masts, and hazy-blue 
atmosphere, penetrating, overspreading, and harmonizing 
all, — itself also harmonizing exquisitely with the gently 
lessening sounds of a busy population as the shades of 
twilight deepened, — and last, in still nearer perspective 
beneath my downcast eye, that extensive Common, 
crossed by numerous footpaths, in which I could dis- 
cern now and then a couple of saunterers of different 
sexes, but too minute by reason of distance for me to 
distinguish whether they were lovers mutually dreaming 
away a too short happy hour, or a little brother and sis- 
ter returning leisurely home from school. I had several 
times strayed to the Athenaeum (impressive exponent 
of united intellect, refinement, and munificence), had 
wandered and paused through its encyclopedic range 
of apartments, had skimmed the world's periodical lit- 
erature on the tables of its reading-room, and amidst the 
favoring silence of the visitors had beheld, with a feel- 
ing of almost terrific enchantment, the cast of 



476 A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 

** Laocoon's torture dignifying pain, — 
A father's love and mortal's agony 
"With an immortal's patience blending." 

The shops of the booksellers, also, presented their re- 
sistless attractions in my daily walks. What charming 
lounges ! How invariably polite and kind, both masters 
and clerks ! How willing that I should gratuitously enter- 
tain myself for hours amidst their " treasures new and 
old," and how especially welcome was I made to the 
full enjoyment of their luxuries, when it was perceived 
that I was a rather liberal purchaser of their choicest 
publications I A chair in the quietest corner of the shop, 
yet not too remote for a gentle and unoffending glance 
at the fair customers who applied, at almost every mo- 
ment, for pocket-books, gold pencils, annuals, tablets, 
and the last new novel, was always secured for the gentle- 
man who, on a single day, could select and order to his 
lodgings a parcel containing Prescott's Ferdinand and 
Isabella, Bancroft's United States, Sparks's Franklin 
and Morris, Everett's and Story's Miscellaneous Writ- 
ings, the works of Thomas Carlyle, Furness on the Gos- 
pels, and other novelties of like commanding interest. 

One morning, while ruminating somewhat vacantly in 
my privileged nook in one of these favorite haunts, the 
graceful and obliging shop-boy brought me a volume, 
which he said he should have certainly offered me before, 
had he not believed that every copy had long since been 
disposed of. He was sure I should be pleased with it, 
and begged me to give it a cursory inspection. The title 
of the book, " Twice-Told Tales, by Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne," put me at once upon a train of musing spec- 
ulation. I knew not whether to consider it attractive or 



A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 477 

repulsive. Generally speaking, a twice-told tale is a 
tedious affair. Some tales, however, will very well bear 
repetition, and who knows, thought I, but such may be 
the case with those before me ? Twice-told tales, more- 
over, are often fresh and new to some portion of the 
audience ; and as I learned from my active little Mercury 
that this compilation of narratives and fancies acquired 
their existing title from having nearly all appeared pre- 
viously in various periodicals, I acknowledged that they 
at least must possess the charm of novelty for those 
who, like me, could indulge but sparingly in that sort 
of reading. Thus, the reasoning of a moment or two 
(would that all prejudices might be as easily surmount- 
ed !) dispelled the unworthy prepossessions I had been 
induced to entertain. On the other hand, a little further 
reflection awakened me to a sense of the peculiar beau- 
ties and merits of this singular title. Like all new con- 
verts, I was now inspired with an inborn zeal for what I 
had just before repudiated. Tivice-Told Tales! How 
simple, how antique, how purely Saxon, these three little 
alliterative words I How they transport us at once to 
the enchantments of the Middle Ages and of minstrel ut- 
terances ! Then, again, what a frank and sturdy honesty 
there is about them I The author of the book seems to 
say : " I give the world fair warning that these tales have 
been published before. It is possible you may have dined 
on the same fare yesterday. If, gentlemen, you can toler- 
ate a picked-up dinner, here are the fragments of former 
entertainments, collected and served to the best of my 
ability. So, walk in ! But if you can put up with noth- 
ing short of a fresh-killed and entire turkey, and a new 
batch of pies and puddings directly from the oven, you 



478 A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 

must go your ways and be entertained elsewhere." I per- 
ceived also in the same circumstance a noble self-reliance, 
— a modest confidence that the book had merits and 
would win its way, notwithstanding the unpretending 
and even self-disparaging character of the title. 

Thus inspired with favorable inclinations, I opened 
the volume, and glanced rapidly over the first two arti- 
cles. The result of this hasty inspection was, that I 
threw a half-eagle on the counter, waited impatiently 
for the change, and hurried home to my lodgings with 
the book, which, before I slept on my pillow that night, 
deserved, at least from my experience, the title of Thrice- 
Read Tales. 

On the next day, my mind was full of Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne. I felt rejoiced that a first-rate book was added 
to our scanty American library, — a first-rate classic to 
our incipient literary galaxy. I hailed the appearance 
of another genuine original on this threadbare earth ; 
and, better still, I hailed the appearance of one of the 
rarest productions of human nature, — an original, de- 
void of almost every exceptionable or offensive quality. 
For alas I thought I, originality is too often attended 
with some enormous evil genius, some outrageous affec- 
tation, some perilous error, some frightful absurdity in 
taste, opinion, or morals. Not so with Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne. He is as good, as delicate, as pure, as old-fash- 
ioned, as sensible, and as safe, in all his sentiments and 
conceptions, as the most timid worshipper of established 
proprieties could desire. One of the greatest triumphs, 
indeed, of his genius, is to have mingled so much genu- 
ine humor, so much keen, flashing wit, with a taste so 
exquisitely fastidious and refined. Nor does it detract 



A DAY OP DISAPPOINTMENT. 79 

from his originality, that he occasionally reminds us of 
the quaintness of Lamb, or of the almost feminine lus- 
ciousness of Washington Irving's picked and perfect 
English. These things are merely extraneous and ac- 
cidental, — just as if Shakespeare should have made a 
bow like Sir Philip Sidney, or Lord Byron unconsciously 
imitated the tone of his friend Rogers. Enough is left 
behind to constitute him one of the most original of 
American writers. A single paper of his, " Rills from 
the Town-Pump," for instance, is enough to give any 
man a lasting reputation. It is one of those unique and 
fortunate productions that genius sometimes throws off 
to excite wonder and delight, and to defy imitation, — 
such as Horace's Visit to Brundusium, Boileau's Third 
Satire, Pope's Rape of the Lock, and Irving's Rip Van 
Winkle. O that respectable, sensible, humorous town- 
pump! Who would have supposed it possible to elevate 
a pump to all the dignity and interest of a living person- 
age ? Who can read the paper, without feeling a loving 
sympathy for that worthy, eloquent, and slily satirical 
piece of wrought timber, shall I say ? or may I rather 
call it that fragment of oaken humanity ? Surely, the 
inhabitants of Salem, where Hawthorne resides, if they 
rightly appreciate such an author, would be willing to ap- 
point him their essayist-laureate, with a handsome salary. 
They would settle him, as a parish settles a minister, 
with the understanding that he should furnish something 
periodically for the gratification and instruction of the 
town. I should like, at some time or other, as a mere 
jeu-d^esprit^ to try my hand at imitating him. Yet how 
impossible to catch his felicities ! How difficult to strike 
like him first into an unbeaten track of imagination, and 



480 A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 

then to strew it with characteristic flowers of wit, fancy, 
fact, humor, eloquence, and wisdom, as I went along! 

Thus I ran on in my reflections at different times and 
places through the day, admiring the depth and felicity 
of my own criticisms almost equally with the qualities 
of my new favorite, — till at length I wrought myself up 
to such a pitch of enthusiasm, that I resolved on the 
morrow to visit Salem, and obtain, if possible, before I 
left New England, a sight of the author of Twice-Told 
Tales. 

Accordingly, I found myself at the appointed hour 
among the crowd on board the steamboat, which was to 
transport us over the ferry to the commencement of the 
new railroad between Boston and Salem. Just before 
starting, an acquaintance introduced me to two ladies, 
whom he placed under my charge for the journey, as it 
was out of his power to accompany them himself. 

" Take care of your heart," said he in a whisper, as he 
led me aside for a moment. " Between that lovely 
widow and her daughter, there is but a slender chance 
of your getting back to Boston entirely unscathed, and 
the result may be, either that one of them will attend 
you next fall to grace your Southern plantation, or that 
you w^ll be induced to transfer your interest to New 
England, and form a connection and residence among 
the Yankees. Yet, in either case, I shall congratulate 
rather than pity you, for they have every sort of recom- 
mendation one can imagine or desire." 

A caution so abrupt and pointed had, I confess, a 
singular effect upon my mind. Instead of fortifying me 
against the charms to which I was to be exposed, it only 
rendered me more vulnerable to their power. There are 



A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 481 

certain cases in which, if you inform a man of his dan- 
ger, you do but increase the risk of his losing himself. 
A calm and unconscious feeling of security is sometimes 
a better guide through perils, than the exciting terrors of 
admonition. Cruel and almost insulting inconsistency! 
To awaken one's anxiety and interest respecting his 
companions for a pleasure-jaunt, at the very moment 
that you warn him to beware of losing his heart! So 
I shall not dwell upon my emotions as I rejoined the two 
ladies, by whose side I remained until I conducted them 
to the door of their friend in Salem. 

They were both very beautiful. The widow was two 
or three years older than myself, while her daughter was 
just on the verge of sixteen. Their conversation was 
animated, intellectual, and spirituelle ; bearing marks of 
the highest female cultivation for which their city is re- 
nowned, yet modified considerably by the age and char- 
acter of each party. The daughter was full of enthusi- 
asm ; imbued with the transcendental philosophy just 
springing up ; inclined to doubt the utility of all forms ; 
familiar with Wordsworth and Carlyle; and bent upon a 
certain philanthropic project of establishing schools for 
adults, of which the teachers should be children, as being 
nearer the Source and Centre of all spiritual Light. In 
short, what with her loveliness and extravagance, I could 
not avoid perpetually regarding her as a sort of delight- 
ful dream. Her mother, with equal, though different 
attractions, I may call, not a dream, but a waking vision. 
She, too, had her high hopes and aspirations, her large, 
kindling views, her enthusiastic schemes of improvement; 
but amidst them all, she seemed to have solid ground to 
tread upon. She reverenced, though she did not worship, 

41 



482 A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 

the spirit of the Past. She believed there was a desira- 
ble mediam between slavish routine and vague extrava- 
gance. She quoted the Edinburgh Review; and once, 
I remember, when a little excited by her daughter's in- 
veighing against all forms, she with some warmth ex- 
pressed her hope that the young ladies of the present 
day would not take it into their heads to get married 
after the manner of the turtle-doves. 

Take the tw^o ladies together, however, they were a 
truly fascinating pair. The very points of contrast in 
their characters and sentiments did but inspire me with 
a more vivid interest. The suggestion of my friend, as 
to one of them accompanying me to the South, irre- 
sistibly intruded itself on my mind. On him be all the 
burden of so presumptuous an idea. Of myself, I should 
not probably have ventured to entertain and cherish it. 
But the spark had caught. My imagination was kin- 
dled. And, to my surprise, I found myself silently in- 
quiring, " Which of them will go ? " 

On bidding them farewell, their cordial smiles, their 
expressions of gratitude for my attentions, and their 
frank solicitations for my protection on our expected 
return the next morning, absolutely banished from my 
mind for a few moments the object of my visit to Salem. 
I wandered at random a short time through one of the 
streets of that beautiful city, without inquiring for the 
residence of Nathaniel Hawthorne ; but as I mused and 
strayed along, I involuntarily revolved the questions, — 
"Which of them will go? Will either of them go? 
Would not both be pleased with a residence at the 
South ? Shall I take the enchanting dream ? or shall 
I invite the more solid waking vision ? " 



A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 48;i 

But the surrounding novelties of a strange city now . 
dispelled these pleasant reveries, and recalled me to my 
original purpose. I discovered the way to the lodgings 
of my favorite author. He was not within, but would 
probably be at home some time in the course of the day. 
I inquired respecting his haunts. They were the Athe- 
naeum, the booksellers', the streets occasionally, or North 
Fields, or South Fields, or the heights above the turn- 
pike, or the beach near the fort ; and sometimes, I 
was told, he would extend his excursions on foot as far 
as Manchester, along the wave-washed, secluded, and 
rocky shore of Beverly. 

It was out of the question for me to explore all these 
places, as I could not prudently spare more than a day 
on my present adventure. I resolved, however, to do 
what man and my limited time could do for the accom- 
plishment of my design. I first visited every bookseller's 
shop in town, and inquired with an air of assumed in- 
difference if Mr. H. had been there that morning. He 
had^ I was told, lounged a few moments at one of them, 
and taken away the last number of the Democratic Re- 
view. But in none of these resorts was he at present 
to be found. I next inquired my way to the Athenaeum, 
or public library of the city. 

On my asking a gentleman if the person I was seek- 
ing were present, he replied : " It is scarcely a quarter of 
an hour, sir, since Mr. Hawthorne was mounting that lad- 
der, to return to its shelf a book he has had out some 
time, on the early history of New England. If you are 
very anxious to see him, he may possibly be found on the 
Neck below the town, where he sometimes walks on so 
fine a morning as this." So down to the Neck I has- 



484 A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 

'tened, and although I was still unfortunate in my search, 
since I saw no human being along those solitary fields 
and shores, yet I was half repaid for my trouble and dis- 
appointment by the distant views of Beverly on the one 
side, and of Marblehead on the other, and the larger and 
nearer city in my rear, while in front the harbor exhibit- 
ed its islands, and the rolling and glistening of its cool 
waves. 

I returned and dined at a hotel ; after which I made 
another attempt to surprise my quarry at his lodgings, 
but in vain. He had not been seen since the morning, 
and in fact was sometimes known to pass a whole day 
abroad, without communicating his intentions to the 
household. Still undiscouraged in my pursuit, I inquired 
the location of some of the most retired, romantic, and 
beautiful scenes in the vicinity of Salem. When Orne's 
Point was described, I determined to direct my course 
thither, thinking it possible I might there discover the 
interesting object of my pursuit. Passing up Essex 
Street, in the stillness of the early afternoon, when scarce- 
ly a citizen was yet returning from dinner to his place 
of business, I came to its intersection with Washington 
Street, where I immediately recognized my old friend, the 
Town Pump; just as Andrew Jackson or Queen Vic- 
toria would be recognized by one who had for some 
time been in possession of a faithful, living portrait 
of either of those eminent personages. I could not pass 
the spot without stopping, for I felt as if on classic soil. 
All was silent and solitary around. The beams of the 
autumn sun came down upon the dry, warm iron basin 
affixed to the pump's venerable nose. 1 quaffed a gener- 
ous draught of the cool beverage, partly for my own 



A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 48o 

bodily gratification, partly as a token of respect to my 
inanimate friend, and partly in honor of the felicitous 
reporter of his speeches. I then said within myself, " I 
will wait here awhile, for I may be amused by some of 
the visitors who have already amused me in description 
before; — and who knows but the very man I am in 
search of may, on his return home to a late and solitary 
meal, pass this way, and, observing a well-dressed, book- 
ish-looking stranger gazing with fervent admiration on 
his own glorified pump, betray by a conscious smile 
his authorship and identity?" So there I stood for half 
an hour; but of the forty or fifty persons who passed 
during that time, though many stared at me with some 
astonishment, yet none appeared to exhibit the slightest 
sympathy with my situation, nor should I have judged 
from their physiognomy or carriage, that any one of 
them was at all capable of composing a book like the 
Twice-Told Tales. As for the pump itself, it remained 
all the while untroubled, save by one fair little girl, who 
filled her pitcher from it, and then retired, gazing with a 
fond but pardonable vanity into the liquid mirror in her 
hands, — the very child, I have no doubt, who was im- 
mortalized for the selfsame act in the original " Rill 
from the Town-Pump." 

I reached Orne's Point by the middle of the afternoon. 
It is one of the loveliest retreats imaginable, and lies 
at the distance of a short two miles from the centre of 
Salem. A hill covered with trees overhangs a small 
and beautiful secluded bay. A mile or more down this 
bay, where it widens towards the sea, one of the longest 
bridges in the State connects Salem with Beverly. On 
a calm day, as you stand upon the rocks at Orne's Point, 

41 * 



486 A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 

you will hear the frequent tramp of horses and carriages 
traversing the bridge, and you will scarcely be able to 
conceive how so loud and rapid and near a noise could 
proceed from the little black spot which your eye dis- 
cerns moving like a slowly creeping insect over the dis- 
tant bridge. 1 paused for a full half-hour enjoying in 
solitude the perfect beauty of this delightful scene. Its 
picturesqueness was not a little heightened by the ap- 
pearance of two cranes stalking silently in the shallow 
water, and at length simultaneously rising and soaring 
slowly away over the trees. Their departure was the 
signal for my own. After idly skipping a few stones 
over the smooth surface, and looking round in vain 
through the trees and on a neighboring cliff for my de- 
sired companion, I retreated lingeringly towards the main 
road. " Farewell, unrivalled spot I " said I, almost aloud. 
" Worthy art thou of the tasteful and observing visits of 
a being like N. H., and next to the pleasure of seeing 
himself, I at least feel indebted to him for indirectly and 
unintentionally giving me this glimpse of thee!" 

Falling into company with a teamster on the Danvers 
road, who gave me a very interesting account of a Ly- 
ceum which he subscribed for and attended, I was shown 
by him the hill on which were executed the Salem 
witches of old. Listless and disappointed, I rambled 
thither, and felt my mind somewhat excited by the rem- 
iniscences incident to the spot. I then pursued my way 
westwardly across many fields and hills and hollows 
towards a populous-looking settlement, and found my- 
self in an ancient and extensive graveyard. I examined 
a few of the inscriptions, of which one happened to be 
the epitaph of poor Eliza Wharton, whose sad history I 



A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 487 

had read and wept over when a youth. What an event- 
ful and fruitful walk, thought I, would this be for Haw- 
thorne himself I How would trains of historical inci- 
dents, and heart-touching reflections, be awakened in his 
iTiind, to constitute, perhaps, a choice portion of the sec- 
ond volume of Twice-Told Tales ! 

The westering sun reminded me that I must rapidly 
direct my course to the city. On arriving at the corner 
where the turnpike leads off to Boston, I remembered 
that the heights above it had been mentioned as one 
of the resorts of my favorite author. There was still 
enough of sunlight left to encourage me in exploring 
this spot also; while the prospect, which I should at all 
events enjoy, presented a strong temptation to the enter- 
prise. I clambered the rocky precipice, and, as I turned 
round to view the city, the setting luminary threw a 
strong golden glare on all its steeples and windows and 
waters, together with the populous villages that spread 
far out towards the northern horizon. I stood entranced 
with this new vision. Less magnificent and imposing 
than the view from the Boston State-House, it exhibited 
a repose, a oneness, a gem-like completion, which the 
other does not possess. The noise of Boston was want- 
ing, scarcely a sound being heard except the striking of 
the " North clock," which was immediately and faintly 
echoed by the striking of the more distant " East." I 
permitted the prospect to fade away before my eyes, one 
tinge dying out after another, — one object or group 
hiding quietly behind a nearer, — till the sombre curtain 
of a gathering twilight left me just glimpses enough to 
commence finding my way back to town. 

On turning to look for an eligible path down the preci- 



488 A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 

pice, I observed a gentleman standing at some distance 
from me, eyeing the same scene with an interest as deep 
as mine, and lingering longer than myself, as if more un- 
willing to depart, or better acquainted than I was with 
the method of descending from the height. I immedi- 
ately approached him, delighted with the belief that I 
had not undertaken my somewhat romantic pilgrimage 
in vain. We exchanged a few words on the exceeding 
beauty of the prospect we had just been surveying. 
The stranger was accessible and companionable. I told 
him I was from a distant part of the United States, 
but was not ignorant of the reputation sustained by 
Salem in reference to the past progress and present ele- 
vation of the country. " With no common emotion," 
said I, as we descended the cliff, and entered the out- 
skirts of the city, " have I trodden the streets and gazed 
on the scenes where a Bowditch passed so many years of 
his life, — and a Holyoke calmly turned his hundredth 
year, — and the venerable and gentlemanly Prince pur- 
sued his scientific improvements to so late a period, — 
where a jurist and a philologist,* who are still living, and 
have done so much for their favorite sciences and for 
their country's reputation, long resided, — and may I 
not add, without flattery, where so many admirable effu- 
sions have perhaps proceeded from him whom I now 
have the honor to address?" The gentleman smiled 
and bowed, as if pardoning the compliment, observing, 
it was true he had written a few things that had been 
favorably received by the public, but that he was far 
from arrogating the distinction I had assigned to him. 
" However," continued he, as we passed along through 

*Hon. Joseph Story and Hon. John Pickering, since deceased. 



A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 489 

Chestnut Street, whose beautiful avenue of trees and 
eleo^ant residences on each side was now iilamined 
by the rising moon, " I have often, like yourself, been 
impressed by the constellation of eminent minds that 
have shone in our little town since the commencement 
of the present century. The list you have enumerated 
might easily be enlarged. You may not have heard of 
the learning of our Bex\tley, — nor the masterly and 
comprehensive, but subdued spirit of our Worcester, 
who lies in his grave among the missionary stations on 
the Mississippi, — nor of several of our learned, culti- 
vated, and Sid generis physicians, — nor of some of our 
" merchant princes," whose sagacity, enterprise, and good 
generalship established our connections with India, and 
introduced a flood of wealth and prosperity into the 
land. I have sometimes entertained the design, as topics 
connected with this city are always favorite ones with 
me, of composing a volume which might be entitled, 
The Worthies of Salem in the First Quarter of the Nine- 
teenth Century. Such a volume, if properly executed, 
would, I believe, be very acceptable in this vicinity, as 
well as to the public at large, and throw a desirable light 
on the intellectual progress of our country. But as the 
task could not perhaps be delicately performed during 
the lives of some of the subjects, an approximation to 
its completion might be effected by compiling memorials 
for a future opportunity." 

" And by whom," exclaimed I, as we arrived and 
stopped at the door of my lodgings, " could the task 
be so well executed as by yourself, Mr. Hawthorne ? " 

" Mr. Hawthorne ! " replied my companion, with much 
astonishment. " I have not the honor, sir, of bearing 



490 A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 

that name." Then, with a good-natured smile and a 
pleasant voice, he abruptly bade me good night, and de- 
parted hastily down the street. 

Petrified with disappointment and surprise, I had not 
the presence of mind to go after him, to apologize for 
my mistake, and learn his real name. After standing 
some time on the steps, I slowly turned and walked into 
the house, where the creature-comforts of a generous tea- 
table afforded me some refreshment from my fatigue, 
and some diversion to my mortification. 

When half of the evening had passed away, and I 
had paid a proper attention to my toilet, I visited with 
some eagerness my two fascinating companions of the 
morning car. Having briefly related to them my adven- 
tures and chagrins, and provoked a due admixture of 
their pity and their smiles, I was invited by the lady of 
the house to accompany them all to a large party in the 
city, which they were on the point of attending, and 
where she assured me I might confidently expect an 
interview with the object of my search. I need not say 
with what alacrity I accepted the invitation, and made a 
fourth in the precious-freighted carriage, which bore us 
rapidly off to the more brilliantly lighted and brilliantly 
crowded mansion in the vicinity of the Mall. 

After presenting me to the hostess of the evening, my 
fair and kind introducer proceeded to acquaint her with 
the object I had at heart, and to inquire in what room or 
corner we might find the gentleman in question. " Sad 
enough!" said the hostess, " Mr. Hawthorne left us half 
an hour ago, having just made his appearance, and told 
us that he must return home to his bed, since he was 
completely worn out with one of the longest day's walks 
he had ever taken." 



A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 491 

For the remainder of the evening, as my name was 
unknown to the generality of the company, I believe I 
must have been distinguished by them as the gentleman 
with the long face. I was silent and abstracted, with the 
exception of a half-hour's secluded and agreeable con- 
versation with my accomplished companion of the cliff. 
Gleams of precious consolation, however, were occasion- 
ally afforded me by glances and smiles from the widow 
and her daughter, as they floated down the whirlpool of 
attentions, which usually absorb creatures like themselves 
in a fashionable party. 

As destiny itself appeared to be against me, I resolved 
to brave it no more, and to resign the hope of seeing a 
person who seemed to escape me like the foot of the 
rainbow. On the next morning, leaving him to his prob- 
able repose after his fatigues of yesterday, I was punc- 
tual to my appointment with the ladies, and placed my- 
self between them on the back seat of one of the crowded 
cars. 

As we waited a few minutes before starting, a gentle- 
man sitting on the front seat held a conversation with a 
friend who had accompanied him to the car, and who 
was pausing outside until the departure of the train, but 
whose person I was prevented by my position from see- 
ing. He seemed animated and inspired by the presence 
of his friend, and conversed in the tone and manner of 
one who is desirous of expressing sentiments agreeable 
to the person he is addressing. I give the substance 
of his remarks. " I heard last evening," said he, "that, 
after you had gone to Boston yesterday in the car, you 
came home on foot along the old road through Maiden 
and Danvers. I heartily sympathize with you for so 



492 A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 

doing. For although the raih'oad is sometimes a con- 
venient evil, yet this condensing of time within a nut- 
shell, and filling up the whole of life with nothing but 
urgent business, will make sad work, I am afraid, with 
the best parts of our character. The turnpike was bad 
enough in this respect, whirling us off to Boston, as it 
did, in an hour and a half, and whirling us back again on 
the same day, as if in mockery of the good old leisure- 
ly practice of the last generation. Give me the blessed 
times when a journey to Boston occasioned a week's 
thought and preparation, and occupied a long summer's 
day in the performance. That circuitous ride through 
Danvers, Lynnfield, and Maiden exerted a blessed ef- 
fect on our merchants and citizens. It gave them a 
breathing-spell from care and toil. It afforded them 
refreshing glimpses of the beauties of nature. It was a 
kind of week-day Sabbath for the weary soul. Many a 
match, too, was made in that way by our young grand- 
fathers and grandmothers. I declare I think I shall in 
future, as often as once a month, hire a horse and chaise 
and go to Boston on that route, just to keep up the 
memory of the days gone by. If the hotel at Lynnfield 
were only still open, where I could stop two hours and 
take an old-fashioned dinner at my leisure, the charm 
would be complete. Nothing makes men so worldly- 
minded as the calculation of the business value of every 
instant as it passes. When I can afford to let the min- 
utes roll unconsciously aw^ay, I seem to escape from the 
slavish, mechanical, monotonous tyranny of Time, and 
to partake beforehand of tke glorious absolute liberty of 
Eternity. Soon after the railroad opened, I went to 
Boston in the car, because that hubbub Everybody said 



A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 493 

that I must. The finest thing I perceived about the 
road was, that it had rescued from the marsh and the 
salt spray some patches of land, which, they say, pro- 
duced last summer beautiful flowers. But I found that 
it had entirely banished from the earth those far lovelier 
flowers. Patience and Resignation. An accidental de- 
tention of four or five minutes threw almost the whole 
two hundred passengers into a fever of complaint and 
agitation. You would have supposed that the country 
was on the verge of ruin, and the Union about to be dis- 
solved, simply because our precious and almighty selves 
would arrive at Boston at five minutes past nine o'clock, 
instead of precisely at nine. Surely the old method of 
travelling was more favorable to the cultivation of Chris- 
tian virtue. If you had not a long day of pleasure be- 
fore you, you had one at least of resignation, and you 
did not look for the sky to fall, if you happened to be 
ten minutes, or even an hour, behind your time. Ah, sir, 
you must have seen yesterday what we lose by abandon- 
ing that excellent route. Now there is a gentle rise, then 
a gentle descent, then a smooth level. Here the road 
winds round a half-mile, to take you by a pretty though 
antique dwelling, or to avoid a lofty hill, and there it 
proceeds a short distance with a straightness that gives 
you the pleasure of contrast and surprise; and then 
again it abruptly turns a corner, where a quince-tree 
is growing over the fence, and presents you below its 
branches with a new prospect. All is charming variety. 
Don't you remember the willow-thickets, and the preci- 
pices in Lynn on the left hand of the road, and the fre- 
quent and beautiful glimpses of the sea away off" to the 
right? And then, when you have endured just fatigue 

42 



494 A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 

and absence enough to prepare you for the change, how 
great is the pleasure of approaching and entering the 
town ! But what pleasure of this kind does the railroad 
give us ? There is no anticipation about it, no gentle 
transition, no blending interchange and succession of 
feelings, but the only sensation attending it is that of a 
hard, uniform, concentrated, iron-beaten Now. I only 
wish that circunristances this very day permitted me to 
practise what I preach. But I am whirled along with 
the multitude and the age, and the locomotive's bell has 
just done ringing for the last time. So good morning, 
Hawthorne." 

" Hawthorne ? Hawthorne ?" said I, as I jumped sud- 
denly from my seat to the window of the car, where, on 
looking out, I caught a dim glimpse of a person who 
had just turned to make his way into the town. At that 
instant the train started, and threw me back into my 
place. One of my feet came with an almost crushing 
violence on the foot of the younger of the two ladies, 
who involuntarily uttered a shriek. My confusion and 
disappointment prevented me from tendering her the 
apology which was her due. I sat in a moody and sul- 
len silence for the remainder of the trip. The ladies in 
vain tried to rally me into good humor. The younger 
condescended even so far as to beg my pardon for what 
she called her uncivil shriek. Kind and generous spirit I 
It was I who ought to have volunteered concession. 
My foot had no business even with the gentlest pres- 
sure against hers, — much less with a momentum that 
resembled the hard tread of a horse. But there was a 
point of forbearance and politeness beyond which their 
feminine dignity would not permit them to go. They 



A DAT OP DISAPPOINTMENT. 495 

became retired and reserved in their turn, or rather, they 
opened a most spirited conversation with the friend of 
Hawthorne; and when we alighted from the carriage 
that conveyed us from the ferry to their mansion in Sum- 
mer Street, I received a civil farewell, but nothing like an 
invitation to walk in, or to visit theni in future. 

My chagrin was somewhat softened by finding that 
the expected party from Canada had arrived at the Tre- 
mont House. We set out the next day on our journey 
South. New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washing- 
ton, Richmond, and Wilmington, delayed us each a day 
or tw^o as we advanced. My Boston disappointments 
faded from my memory, as an ascending balloon fades 
from the eye, or as one of the well-known " dissolv- 
ing scenes " lessens and disappears before the spectator. 
This result may have been hastened by the presence of 
a fair member of our party, a native of the South, who 
was placed under my immediate protection, and in 
whom I found myself cherishing an increasing inter- 
est, as we visited the museums, and curiosities, and va- 
rious places of relaxation on our route, or were exposed 
to the usual calms and incidents of a journey. By the 
time we had arrived in Charleston, I was very nearly 
induced to make to hei' the proposition of becoming 
an ornament to my plantation, — a proposition which I 
have reason to believe she would have graciously enter- 
tained. But some evil genius or other provoked me 
from time to time to delay the proposal, until a bolder 
and more fortunate hand conducted her to a sphere 
which was worthy of her graces and virtues. This 
very incident, however, together with my New-England 
experiences as above narrated, well exemplifies my usual 



-lyC A DAY OF DISAPPOINTMENT. 

destiny, which never allows me to look perfect satis- 
faction directly and permanently in the face, but only, 
like Moses in the wilderness, to behold its departing 
skirts. 



1838. 



POEMS 



42* 



PLEASURES AND PAINS OF THE STU- 
DENT'S LIFE. 

A COMMENCEMENT POEM. 
1811. 

When envious Time, with unrelenting hand, 
Dissolves the union of some little band, 
A band connected by those hallowed ties 
That from the birth of lettered friendship rise. 
Each lingering soul, before the parting sigh. 
One moment waits, to view the years gone by ; 
Memory still loves to hover o'er the place, 
And all our pleasures and our pains retrace. 

The Student is the subject of my song ; — 
Few are his pleasures, — yet those few are strong ; 
Not the gay, transient moment of delight. 
Not hurried transports felt but in their flight. 
Unlilie all else, the student's joys endure, — 
Intense, expansive, energetic, pure. 
Whether o'er classic plains he loves to rove, 
'Midst Attic bowers, or through the Mantuan grove, — 
Whether, with scientific eye, to trace 
The various modes of number, time, and space, — 
Whether on wings of heavenly truth to rise. 
And penetrate the secrets of the skies. 
Or, downward tending, with an humble eye, 
Through Nature's laws explore a Deity, — 
His are the joys no stranger breast can feel, 
No wit define, no utterance reveal. 



500 A COMMENCEMENT POEM. 

Nor yet, alas ! unmixed the joys we boast ; 
^ Our pleasures still proportioned labors cost. 
An anxious tear oft fills the student's eye, 
And his breast heaves with many a struggling sigh. 
His is the task, the long, long task, to explore 
Of every age the lumber and the lore. 
Need I describe his struggles and his strife, 
* The thousand minor miseries of his life ? 
How Application, never-tiring maid. 
Oft mourns an aching, oft a dizzy head ? 
How the hard toil but slowly makes its way, 
One word explained, the labor of a day, — 
Here forced to search some labyrinth without end. 
And there some paradox to comprehend, — 
Here ten hard words fraught with some meaning small. 
And there ten folios fraught with none at all ? 
Or view him meting out, with points and lines, 
The land of diagrams and mystic signs. 
Where forms of spheres, " being given " on a plane. 
He must transform and bend within his brain ? 
Or, as an author, lost in gloom profound. 
When some bright thought demands a period round, 
Pondering and polishing ? — Ah, what avail 
The room oft paced, the anguish-bitten nail .'' 
For see, produced 'mid many a laboring groan, 
A sentence much like an inverted cone ! 
Or, should he try his talent at a rhyme. 
That waste of patience and that waste of time, 
Perchance, like me, he hammers out one line, 

Begins the next, — there stops 

Enough ! no more unveil the cloister's grief; — 
Disclose those sources whence it finds relief. 
Say how the student, pausing from his toil, 
Forgets his pain 'mid recreation's smile. 
Have you not seen, beneath the solar beam, 



A COMMENCEMENT POEM. 501 

The -winged tenants of some haunted stream 

Feed eager, busy, by its pebbly side, — 

Then wanton in the cool, luxurious tide ? 

So the wise student ends his busy day, 

Unbends his mind, and throws his cares away. 

To books where science reigns, and toil severe, 

Succeeds the alluring tale, or drama dear. 

Or haj^ly, in that hour his taste might choose 

The easy warblings of the modern muse. 

Let me but paint him void of every care, 

Flung in free attitude across his chair. 

From page to page his rapid eye along 

Glances and revels through the magic song ; 

Alternate swells his breast with hope and fear. 

Now bursts the unconscious laugh, now falls the pitying tear. 
Yet more ; though lonely joys the bosom warm, 

Participation heightens every charm ; 

And, should the happy student chance to know 

The warmth of friendship, or some kindlier glow, 

What wonder, should he swiftly run to share 

Some favorite author with some favorite fair ! 

There, as he cites those treasures of the page 

That raise her fancy, or her heart engage, 

And listens while her frequent, keen remark 

Discerns the brilliant, or illumes the dark, 

And, doubting much, scarce knows which most to admire, 

The critic's judgment, or the writer's fire ; 

And, reading, often glances at that face 

Where gently beam intelligence and grace. 

And sees each passion in its turn prevail, 

Her looks the very echo of the tale, — • 

Sees the descending tear, the heaving breast. 

When vice exults, or virtue is distressed ; 

Or, when the plot assumes an aspect new. 

And virtue shares her retribution due, 



502 A COMMENCEMENT POEM. 

He sees the grateful smile, the nphfted eye, 
Thread, needle, kerchief, dropped in ecstasy, — 
Say, can one social pleasure equal this ? 

Yet still even here imperfect is the bliss. 
For ah ! how oft must awkward learning yield 
To graceful dulness the unequal field 
Of gallantry ? What lady can endure 
The shrug scholastic, or the bow demure ? 
Can the poor student hope that heart to gain, 
Which melts before the flutter of a cane? 
Which of two rival candidates shall pass. 
Where one consults his books, and one his glass ? 

Ye fair, if aught these censures may apply, 
'T is yours to effect the vital remedy ; 
Ne'er should a fop the sacred bond remove 
Between the Aonian and the Paphian grove. 
'T is yours to strengthen, polish, and secure 
The lustre of the mind's rich garniture ; 
This is the robe that lends you heavenly charms, 
And envy of its keenest sting disarms ; 
A robe whose grace and richness will outvie 
The gems of Ormus, or the Tyrian dye. 

To count one pleasure more, indulge my Muse ; 
'T is Friendship's self, — what cynic will refuse ? 
Oh ! I could tell how oft her joys we shared. 
When mutual cares those mutual joys endeared ; 
IIow arm in arm we lingered through the vale. 
Listening to many a time-beguiling tale ; 
How oft, relaxing from one common toil. 
We found repose amid one common smile. 
Yes, I could tell, but the dear task how vain ! 
'T would but increase our fast approaching pain, — 
The pain so thrilling to a student's heart, 
Couched in that talisman of woe. We part J 



SEQUEL 

TO THE COMMENCEMENT POEM. 

1 8 5 2 * 

I, WHO once sang the Student's Joys and Woes, 

"Would cliant, to-night, their relrosidective close. 

Nay, start not, chissmatcs, at such theme of gloom, 

Nor charge that I anticipate your doom. 

'T is true, some rare vitality seems given 

To the lithe graduates of Eighteen Eleven, 

Since but a third of our whole corps appears 

Stelligerent t in the lapse of forty years ; 

A proof, perhaps, that, spite of youth's elation, 
We shunned the fault of over-application ! 
Yet, though our fated summons be not soon. 
We 're wearing down life's lessening afternoon ; 
Not sullenly nor seldom do we hear 
The lisped cognomen of " Grandfather dear," 
And, startled, bear as bravely as w^c can 
Tiiat graphic title. The Old Gentleman ; 
Not having reached that period when the old 
Seem pleased and proud to hear their ages told. 
So, your indulgence I shall no more ask. 
But straight commence my retrospective task. 

* Delivered on tlie evening of Commencement day, at the residence of 
the Hon. Edward Everett, in Boston, whither tlie Class liad been in- 
vited to celebrate the forty-first anniversary of their graduation. 

t A star is prefixed, in College Catalogues, to the names of deceased 
graduates. 



504 SEQUEL TO THE COMMENCEMENT POEM. 

Still for the Student-Man, as Student-Boy, 
Varied has rolled our course with pain and joy. 
O those long boding years of work and care, 
For our embraced Profession to prepare ! 
And then those longer years, still doomed to see 
No " call of Providence," nor grateful fee ! 
But, in due time, hope cheered the patient heart ; 
In life's grand duties we have borne our part, — 
Have laid our shoulders to the social wheel. 
In all that man can do, or think, or feel, — 
Have sometimes triumphed with a favorite cause, 
And sometimes wept to see it droop, or pause. 

Amid these storms and outward cares of life 
Came the dear sunshine of a home and wife. 
Not ours the selfish scholar's huge mistake, 
That household ties rude interruption make. 
From those same ties a finer zest we catch, 
For every studious moment we can snatch ! 
If in our ranks some Benedicks there be, 
They scarcely muster more than two or three ; 
And I feel sure their fault it has not been. 
But rather of the world's capricious queen ! 

As down the Past our grateful memory looks, 
Let us confess the bliss we drew from books ; 
Those mute companions of the dear-bought hours, 
Those quickening Mentors of our dormant powers. 
Our inward life how favored, to have found 
Such various nutriment spread all around ! 
Yet, as no good is pure from some alloy. 
This rank abundance has impaired our joy. 
How hard the choicest reading to select, 
And specious dulness in advance detect ! 
Into what tomes of nonsense have we dipped, 
What modest, solid pages have we skipped ! 



SEQUEL TO THE COMMENCEMENT POEM. 505 

'T is pain to think that we must quit this world, 

With myriads of the brightest scrolls yet furled. 

We snatch but half a life, to leave unread 

Great utterings of the living and the dead. 

Yes, /shall die, before I have looked o'er 

Montaigne, and Marlowe, and unnumbered more. 

May we not hope, that, 'midst the heavenly rest. 

One of the " many mansions " of the blest 

Shall be a spacious Library, arrayed 

In spirit-volumes from the earth conveyed ? 

There all that Omar burned shall be restored. 

And bright gold bindings clothe the priceless hoard ; 

New series of celestial works pour in, 

Never to end, and ever to begin ; 

Some sainted Russian shall the books perfume, 

A softened heaven-light shall the place illume. 

Sweet mystic silence mantle all around. 

Just broken by the outward choral sound ; 

One glance a volume's contents comprehend. 

And leisure last whole seons without end ! 

That heaven of heaven those men may enter in, 
If washed, I mean, from other stain of sin. 
Who, in this world, a book with smiles laid down, 
At the intrusion of some friendly clown ; — 
All those, in short, who lettered sweets resigned, 
To give their powers in person to mankind. 

'T is pleasure for the student's thought to trace 
The advance of Art, and Science, and the Race. 
Blest are the eyes that see what we have seen, 
In the brief lapse since our unfledged nineteen. 
Within that handbreadth have been crowded more 
Of marvels than ten centuries knew before ; 
While life, and man, and all things here below, 
Show a changed world from forty years ago. 

43 



506 SEQUEL TO THE COMMENCEMENT POEM. 

Who would have thought dear Harvard's walls had stood, 

In our young days, had her imperilled brood 

To witching Boston been enticed to stray 

Four times an hour, instead of twice a day ? 

Yet of such wonders this is far the least : 

"We sit at an Arabian-Nights' strange feast ; 

We witness metamorphoses, that seem 

Less like reality than some wild dream. 

Through every range of current life extend 

Increasing lights, and comforts without end ; — 

School-books so plain that babes can understand ; 

Two morning papers in a cabman's hand ; 

Mammoth gazettes, each day, as full of new 

Fine matter, as the old Critical Review ; 

Stone-coal, ignited, conquering wintry glooms, 

And western lakes upgushing in our rooms. 

One fount of lighted gas a city serves, 

One whiff of ether calms the frantic nerves ; 

Steam in a month conveys us round the globe, 

Weaves for the nations their protecting robe. 

Prints off ten thousand sheets within an hour, 

And clothes mankind with preternatural power. 

Yet Steam's may be but a Saturnian reign ; 

The Electro-Magnet seeks that throne to gain. 

Antipodes demand the talking wire ; 

Portraits are painted by the solar fire ; * 

New planets ferreted before perceived, 

And facts established almost ere believed. 

Here, animalcular creations ope. 

There, heavens draw near us through the telescope, 

And Berenice sees, 'mid polar cars. 

Her nebulous locks unbraided into stars. 

* Speaking with prosaic precision, the photograph acts only by means of 
the rays ofliffht in the solar beam. 



SEQUEL TO THE COMMENCEMENT POEM. 507 

Nor less in public life have marvels reigned ; — 
Thrice our torn land its wholeness has regained ; 
Our strip of States a continent has grown, 
And Europe risen, to circumscribe the Throne. 

Yet o'er this wonderful Achilles-shield, 
The trembling student's tear is oft unsealed. 
Amid such strides of vast material power. 
He sees new evils lurk, new dangers lower ; 
He asks for some great moral engine's force. 
To speed man's spirit on an equal course. 
As civilized achievement rises high, 
Mounts the dread tide of vice and misery. 
Has Education yet the secret gained 
Of Youth restrained, yet not too much restrained? 
When will young people cease to play the fool, 
And take some warning from their parents' school ! 
Alas ! cigars and oaths, I shrewdly fear, 
Get nearer to the cradle every year. 

And even in mental discipline alone, 
With all its lights, has Learning raised its tone ? 
Is riper scholarship developed now, 
Than when an Abbot * smoothed the school-boy's brow ? 
Is intellect more patient and profound. 
Than when it delved in harder, narrower ground ? 
Boohs also might improve by quarantines ; 
Thought oft cries liberty, but license means ; 
The Press, sometimes a foul prolific sty. 
Makes the land noisome with its numerous fry. 
Opinion's leaders rival Shakespeare's Puck, 
Pert Speculation fairly runs amuck ; 
Fantasy questions all established things. 
Tired Reverence folds her once face-covering wings, 

* The former distinguished Preceptor of Exeter Academy. 



508 SEQUEL TO THE COMMENCEMENT POEM. 

And, with some lightning truths by Genius given, 
His daring apothegms shake earth and heaven. 

So, if again to poHtics we turn, 
Dark futures for our country we discern, 
With parties, aims, machineries, and ways, 
Undreamt of by our Hamiltons and Jays ; 
None knowing, too, if our gigantic state 
Will fall, or hold its own by sheer dead-weight, 
Of heterogeneous elements composed, 
To the w^orld's dregs our flood-gates all unclosed ; 
While far across the vexed, ship-fevered main, ' 
Reactionary Europe hugs her chain. 

Yet let us own, amidst the general taint, 
Proud Liberty endures some wise restraint ; 
The flood prevails not every place above, — 
Lights on some resting-spots the wandering Dove ; 
The germ that bourgeoned at our nation's birth, 
Nobly assimilates the very earth ; 
Unchecked democracies the Sabbath keep. 
Fierce parties o'er a dying statesman weep, 
And (civic self-control unknown before ! ) 
Whole States resolve to pass the Cup no more ; 
The blessed School embowers Youth's flexile tree. 
And Faith burns brighter, as it burns more free. 
Science blasphemes no longer, as she pores. 
And Comte, his Titan Law relaxed, adores ! * 

Classmates, we know not ^vhere this maze shall end ; 
To our own loorh we know that we must bend ; 
On other hands the task must be devolved. 
Before these mighty problems can be solved. 



* M. Comte, in his " Sjsteme de la Politique Positive," recently pub- 
lished, at length recognizes, with considerable personal sensibility, the moral 
and religious element in man as a legitimate object of philosophical specu- 
lation. 



SEQUEL TO THE COMMENCEMENT POEM. 509 

For US, though welcoming each hopeful plan, 
I deem our class conservative, to a man. 
So, with a prayer that all may yet be right, 
Let us indulge in apter themes to-night. 

One heart-born pleasure for our student race 
Is to behold a classmate's well-known face. 
We do not meet him like another man ; 
He starts emotions that no other can. 
Whether in throngs or wastes our footsteps bend, 
Meet but a classmate, and we meet a friend. 
Certes, if one my distant home but greet. 
The door flies open for his welcome feet. 
Our classmates know us as few others do. 
Kind to our failings, to our merits true. 
Hence our unfading, our unique delights. 
When our " Fair Mother " holds her festal rites. 

Who can forget that famed centennial year, 
When Harvard hailed her sons from far and near ? 
What joy, what beckonings, what exchanged surprise, 
As at each other flashed inquiring eyes ! 
How changed, yet how the same, ourselves we found, 
Since last we parted on that classic ground ! 
The same old joking and peculiar ways. 
That marked the intercourse of fresher days ; 
And yet the experience deep we could but see, 
Ploughed by one quarter of a century ! 

To-night again such greetings we renew, — 
O'er life's slant pathway memory's roses strew, 
Light with fresh tints our lingering sun's decline, 
And closer draw the invaded circle's line. 

Ah yes ! such pleasures have their dark reverse ; 
Through flowery beds rolls on the ruthless hearse ; 
Of those familiar forms we miss to-night, 
Most are for ever sundered from our sight. 

43* 



510 SEQUEL TO THE COMMENCEMENT POEM. 

Oft have I passed a mournful day, when came 
The new Triennial, starred with many a name. 
It seems but yesterday since Harvard's shade 
Saw us as Freshmen, curious and afraid. 
Erelong, what salient characters there sprang, 
What life and fire from our colHsions rang ! 
And now, a cohort of that valiant band 
Knows us no more beneath the spirit-land. 
What is the meaning of this shadowy scene ? 
Where are the meteor-friendships that have been ? 

Pause we a moment o'er each name, and see, 
Even in these few, mankind's epitome. 

Baker, of generous, independent haste ; 
Farnham, of graceful phrase, and polished taste ; 
Story, that youthful miracle of Greek ; 
HiLDRETH, intent on politics to speak ; 
Cooper, Refinement's many-cultured child ; 
Reed, meekly pious ; Weston, still and mild ; 
Prentiss, the spotless and the studious youth ; 
Lone Waterhouse, through nature following truth ; 
Hunt, like his own geometry, upright ; 
Otis, the glass of fashion, frank and bright ; 
Good-natured Weld ; and unassuming Gray ; 
Rogers, with happy laugh, and merry play ; 
Putnam, wise, learned, and old enough to teach ; 
Damon, of open heart, and fluent speech ; 
Perkins, the social ; Williams, the retired ; 
And all with true class-fellowship inspired. 

One grave and name we pass, — but tremble still 
At passion's force, and self-indulgent will ; 
Owning the need of Heaven's restraining grace, 
To curb and sanctify our erring race. 

Brethren, that grace, in its abounding scope, 
Shed on your path faith, peace, content, and hope ! 



SEQUEL TO THE COMMENCEMENT POEM. 511 

May cliildren's children lead you down the way 
Of cheerful, useful, un perceived decay ; 
Not forced to toil too late for wearied self, 
And not too early laid upon the shelf! 
Blest with keen bodily and mental sight. 
May books still prove your solace and delight ; 
And duly may your search be there where lies, 
Imbedded near, the pearl of richest price ! 

Stay yet, dear friends ; the Minstrel bids you toast, 
In pure, bright water, our accomplished host ; 
Who gives, one need not say, our class its name, 
Tinged with the lustre of his well-earned fame. 
Health for his labors, for his cares relief. 
To him, our first and last unenvied chief ! 



HUMAN LIFE 



Life, Human Life ! Such is the theme to-day, 
Which kindles hope in you, in me dismay,* — 
A theme to me, unpractised wight, yet new, 
A theme enjoyed, adorned, and filled by you. 
Life is but tasted at threescore and ten ; 
What can green twenty-three accomplish, then ? 
Life is an ocean, where whole myriads sweep, — 
How can a minim comprehend the deep ? 
Or atmosphere, where countless insects glance, — 
Can one poor fly survey the immense expanse ? 
Who shall direct me on this shoreless route ? 
Where enter ? rather, at what point come out ? 
How o'er these fluctuating spaces range ? 
How sketch one trait of this eternal change ? 
How, dreaming, can I reason on my dream ? 
How take the soundings, as I glide the stream ? 

But why thus ready in despair to sink, 
When smiles like yours forbid my heart to shrink ? 

* This poem was delivered in 1815, at Cambridge, Mass., on the anni- 
versary of a literary society (the Phi Beta Kappa), before a large audience 
composed of both sexes. Though widely circulated in manuscript, it has 
never before been published. Many portions were necessarily omitted in 
the delivery, while several local and temporary allusions are at present sup- 
pressed. Other retrenchments and modifications have been made, without, 
however, impairing the identity and integrity of the piece. 



HUMAN LIFE. 513 

Urged by those smiles, my trembling spirit burns, 
And each dread wave of difficulty spurns. 

Whirled though we are around life's giddy tide, 
Some steadfast views by care may be supplied. 
Could Newton, wiser Archimedes, show 
How the world moved, without a dos ttov (ttS), 
If Locke the secrets of the mind unsheathed, 
If Priestley analyzed the air he breathed. 
Why may not we, with philosophic eye, 
The laws that guide our moral sphere descry ? 
Why not transcend the range of chemic strife. 
And decompose this circumambient life, — 
Detect the good and evil blended there, 
Like oxygen and nitrogen in air ? 

Two grand and primal characters we find 
By Nature's God impressed on all mankind. 
In Age and Sex. First let us ponder these, 
For method's show, then ramble where we please. 

Mark, then, what wisdom shines in that decree. 
Which, varying life, ordained our ages three, — 
Youth, manhood, and decline. In these we trace 
A fine proportion and harmonious grace. 
Deprived of either, life would cease to charm, — 
A passion-chaos, or a deathlike calm. 
If all were youth, and this a world of boys. 
Heavens ! what a scene of trifles, tricks, and toys ! 
How would each minute of the livelong day 
In wild obstreperous frolic waste away ! 
A world of youth ! defend us from a brood 
So wanton, rash, improvident, and rude ! 
Truants from duty, and in arts unskilled, 
Their minds and manners, with their fields, unfilled, 
Their furniture of gaudy playthings made. 
Sweetmeats their staple article of trade. 



514 HUMAN LIFE. 

No fruit allowed to ripen on the tree, 

And not a bird's-nest from invasion free ! 

In public life, tliere still would meet your sight 

The same neglect of duty and of right. 

Go, for example, to some stripling court, 

And see which there w^ould triumph, law or sport. 

" Adjourn, adjourn ! " some beardless judge would say ; 

" I '11 hear the trial, when I 've done my play." 

Or, should the judge sit faithful to the laws, 

Hear how the counsel would defend his cause : 

" May it please your honor, 't is your turn to stop ; 

I '11 spin my speech, when I have spun my top." 

Meanwhile the jury pluck each other's hair, 

The bar toss briefs and dockets into air. 

The sheriff, ordered to keep silence, cries, 

" O yes ! O yes ! when I have caught these flies ! " 

Such were the revellings of this giddy sphere, 
Should youth alone enjoy dominion here ; 
All glory mischief, and all business play, 
And life itself one misspent holiday. 

Now let us take a soberer view again. 
And make this world a world of full-grown men, — 
Stiff, square, and formal, dull, morose, and sour. 
Contented slaves, yet tyrants when in power ; 
The firmest friends, where interest forms the tie, 
The bitterest foes, when rival interests vie ; 
Skilled to dissemble, and to smile by rule, 
In passion raging, but in conduct cool. 
Still, with some deep remote design in view. 
Plodding, yet wanting ardor to pursue ; 
Still finding fault in every fretful breath. 
Yet dreading innovation worse than death ; 
In arts unwieldy, but too proud to learn, 
In trifles serious, and in frolic stern ; 



HUMAN LIFE. 15 

Selfish in love, — conceive to be alive 

A tender, timorous pair at forty-five ! 

What sighs and wishes — for a thousand pound ! 

What killing glances — at a manor-ground ! 

True sighs and looks are better understood 

By hearts of fresh, uncalculating blood. 

And sure the stream of life must sweeter stray, 

The nearer to the source its waters play. 

Besides, there glows such raciness in youth, 

Such touches come of innocence and truth. 

We love the things, how full soe'er they be 

Of jocund mischief or disturbing glee. 

If they require man's strong, experienced rein, 

Man's darker vices they in turn restrain. 

From youth the profligate their sins conceal. 

And feign that virtue which they cannot feel. 

Before his son what parent is profane ? 

What outcast dares a filial ear to stain ? 

Who does not check his conduct and his tongue. 

In reverence for the yet untainted young ? 

O yes ! in tender age, a holy charm 

Breathes forth, and half protects itself from harm. 

Bereft of that, and to mid-age confined, 

The life of life were ravished from mankind ; 

Tlie same mill-wheel of habits would prevail, 

Vice wax inveterate, folly would grow stale, 

And life's fair task of active bliss become 

A long, dark fit of hypochondriac gloom. 

Thus youth's and manhood's fierce extremes contend. 
With wholesome war, each other's sins to mend. 
Waging a sort of elemental strife, 
They raise and purify the tone of life. 
The light and shade that fix its colors true, 
The sour and sweet that give it all its gout. 



516 HUMAN LIFE. 

But shall Old Age escape unhonored here, — 
That sacred era, to reflection dear, — 
That peaceful shore, where Passion dies away, 
Like the last wave that ripples o'er the bay ? 
Hail, holy Age ! preluding heavenly rest ! 
Why art thou deemed by shallow fools unblest ? 
Some dread, some pity, some contemn thy state, 
Yet all desire to reach thy lengthened date ; 
And of the few so hardly landed there. 
How very few thy pressure learn to bear, 
And fewer still thy reverend honors wear ! 
He who in youth hath fed the pure desire. 
And rode the storm of manhood's fiercer fire, 
He only can deserve, and rightly knows, 
Thy sheltering strength, thy glorious repose. 
As some old courser, of a generous breed. 
Who never yielded to a rival's speed. 
Far from the tumults of Olympic strife. 
In peaceful pastures, loiters out his life. 
So the wise veteran crowns his strenuous race, 
Breathing, released, in dignity and grace. 
What though the frost of years invest his head ? 
What though the furrow mark time's heavy tread ? 
There still remains a sound and vigorous frame, 
A decent competence, an honest name. 
In every neighbor he beholds a friend, 
Even heedless youth to him in reverence bend, 
Whilst duteous sons retard his mild decay. 
Or children's children slope his weary way. 
And lead him to the grave with fate-beguiling play. 
Thus, as the dear-loved race he leaves behind 
Still court his blessing, and that blessing find, 
And, since they must survive the good old man, 
Tread on his heels as softly as they can. 



^ 



HUMAN LIFE. 517 

Their tenderness in turn he well repays, 

And yields to them the remnant of his days. 

For them he frames the laughter-moving joke, 

For them the tale with pristine glee is spoke, 

For them a thousand nameless efforts rise ; 

To warn, to teach, to please, he hourly tries, 

Nor ever knows himself so truly blest. 

As when purveying comforts for the rest. 

His hands in timely duties never tire. 

He grafts the scion, points the tendril's spire. 

Or prunes the summer bower, or trims the winter fire. 

Nor is this all. As sensuous joys subside, 
Sublimer pleasures are to age allied. 
Then pensive memory fondly muses o'er 
The bliss or woe impressed so long before ; 
The sinking sun thus sheds his mellowest ray 
Athwart those scenes he brightened through the day. 
Then, too, the soul, as heavenly prospects ope. 
Expands and kindles with new beams of hope ; 
So the same parting orb, low in the west. 
Dilates and glows before he sinks to rest. 
Yes ! if Old Age were cancelled from our lot, 
Full soon would man deplore the unhallowed blot ; 
Life's busy day would miss its tranquil even. 
And earth must lose its stepping-stone to heaven. 

Thus, every age by God to man assigned 
Declares His power, how good, how wise, how kind ; 
And thus in manhood, youth, and eld we trace 
A fine proportion and harmonious grace. 

But Life a richer aspect still supplies : 
Sex is the theme to which my pencil flies. 
How Life exulted at that glad decree, 
When Nature said, Let man, let woman be ! 



518 HUMAN LIFE. 

■T was kindness all, 't was Heaven's redundant grace, 

That wove this blest distinction for our race. 

If men had started from the teeming earth. 

Or, like Deucalion's sons, disdained a birth ; 

If tribes of women from the deep had sprung. 

As she of old, by dreaming poets sung ; 

Had life, with fatal independence, known 

Mere Benedicks, or Amazons alone, — 

Woe worth the gloom of that untoward scene, 

With no redeeming joys to intervene, 

These tranquil duties and bland cares denied, 

Which now so finely checker and divide ! 

The toils of either sex devolved on one. 

Life's crowded business must be half undone. 

Men, torn between the household and the field. 

Must now the spade and now the bodkin wield ; 

Hands, by long rigid labor callous grown. 

Must plait the muslin, or adjust the gown. 

And hordes of uncouth lubbers you might see 

Stalk from the plough (ye Gods !) to pour out tea. 

Not such the picture of our present state ; — 
No tasks oppress with disproportioned weight. 
Exempt from pains absurd, and awkward cares. 
Each willing sex a separate burden bears. 
The one, adapted and inured to toil. 
Roves the wide earth, or tills the stubborn soil. 
The other sways the still domestic sphere. 
More circumscribed, though not to life less dear. 
Yet think not thus their interests blend the worse : 
Identity of sphere would prove their curse. 
Relation, contrast, makes their being one. 
As Day consists of morn and evening sun. 
Scarce a more vital, binding union feel 
The centre and the circuit of a wheel. 



HUMAN LIFE. 

Life lives on both ; their contrast simply this, 

Man is its glory, woman is its bliss. 

Joint pilgrims onward through this rugged road, 

Their best relief to ease each other's load ; 

He clears the way, and guards it with his powers. 

While she that pathway strews with choicest flowers. 

If he must brave the hardships of the storm, 

'T is she at least that keeps his shelter warm. 

If he with fortune wage perpetual war, 

'T is she that makes his lot worth fighting for ! 

But ah ! my laboring fancy strives in vain 

For some apt semblance of the human twain. 

Nature has no two webs so closely joined 

As their conspiring influence on mankind. 

Like the glad breeze that animates the air, 

He is the health, and she the music there. 

Or, shining like the sun's compounded blaze, 

He darts the bright, and she the melting rays. 

And can it be that men should e'er combine 
To frustrate Nature in this wise design. 
And with a rival's malice dare degrade 
A sex, their pride, their bliss, their equals made ? 
Yes, such there are, who hope themselves to raise. 
As woman sinks beneath their base dispraise. 
One class traduces her material frame. 
Others her mind, the last her morals, blame. 
These three I meet, the sex's champion, 
And, like Horatius, smite them one by one. 

First, then, some sinewy heroes boast their strength, 
And cry : " This difference you must own at length. 
Woman is not so muscular as man. 
And hence inferior, even on Nature's plan. 
She is not strong, — she cannot bear such shocks." 
True, but I tell you, sir, what can, — an ox. 



519 



520 HUMAN LIFE. 

Go, then, and rate your merit by the stone ; 
Woman wars not for cartilage and bone. 

Next comes a railer of a higher kind : 
Not woman's size offends him, but her mind. 
Methinks I hear some dapper wight exclaim, 
Whose sex confers his only right to fame : 
" Thanks to my stars, I 'm not a woman born ! 
Learning and science hailed my natal morn ; 
Nature on me no gifts or graces spared. 
She gave omniscience, when she gave a beard. 
Let them whose wonder still on woman doats 
Produce a Newton hooped in petticoats, — 
A Doctress Johnson, in her cap and ruff, 
Or kilted Stewart, deep in thought and snuff." 

Before I answer this right witty spark. 
His merry charge deserves one grave remark. 
Where are the schools and colleges designed 
To train and discipline the female mind ? 
Would Newton's name, or Johnson's, loom as great, 
Had they been trammelled in a w^oman's fate, — 
Condemned through life to ply the eternal thread, 
Or bake some hapless scholar's daily bread, — 
Toils, from which learned ideas flit away, 
Like the scared ghosts that fly the coming day ? 
Think, then, how base, preposterous, and unfair, 
A woman's mind with Stewart's to compare ! 
You shut the gates of science in her face, 
Then publish that exclusion her disgrace ! 

But while reluctant I the palm concede 
Which fortune, and not nature, has decreed, 
Think not I mean to parley with the foe, 
Or quit the field without one parting blow. 
O ye profound monopolists of mind ! 
To whom all wit and wisdom are confined, 



HUMAN LIFE. 521 

Who aim to rule the lettered world alone, 

And cannot bear a sister near the throne, 

Who still at every female effort rail, 

And brand their thoughts as feeble, trite, and stale. 

Pray condescend sometimes to leave your lore, 

And be as shallow as De Stael or More. 

But of this triple host, who forms the arriere ? 
A foe indeed ! yet let not woman fear. 
Though rudely he assassinate her heart. 
Yet shall her injured fame repel the dart. 
Come on, maligners of the sex, declare 
How weak, how false, how faithless, are the fair. 
I grant you all, — and yet I '11 win the field ; 
So woman conquers, when she seems to yield. 
Allow she has a soft and ductile soul ; 
Is gold the hardest metal of the whole ? 
Allow she has a fickle, wavering mind ; 
Do we not breathe and live on fickle wind ? 
Allow she has a wily, treacherous heart ; 
Are you, O man, inveigled by her art ? 
What ! her superior ? you, her better part ? 
Besides, have you not had the upper hand ? — 
Six thousand years of absolute command ! 
Then why not mould and train, ye sovereign kings. 
Your pliant subjects into nobler things ? 
Yourselves, too, will the page of history find 
Such perfect patterns to frail womankind ? 
Has your example ruled in life's affairs. 
More pure, peace-loving, and devout than theirs ? 

I could pursue the triumph, but forbear, — 
Even woman generously bids me spare, — 
Content if I have placed in fairer light 
Her claims of equal dignity and right. 
44 # 



522 HUMAN LIFE. 

Still on my mind a few inquiries press, 
That urge reply, — our theme demands no less. 
What makes the nuptial pair most truly blest ? 
'T is this, — just so much worth must fill each breast^ 
That, when they wake from love's romantic dream, 
Their eyes may open on a fixed esteem. 

Again, what constitutes the choicest wife, 
Next to the praise that she abhors all strife ? 
'T is this, — identity of bliss and woe, 
Of hopes and fears, of what they wish or know. 
Have you not seen an honest, gracious dame, 
Alive to all her husband's pride or shame ? 
Have you not visited their generous board. 
And watched her anxious interest in her lord, 
Heard the long story, in his hackneyed strain. 
Told and retold, (ah me !) and told again ? 
No matter, — she enjoys it quite as well, 
And would till doomsday, did he live to tell. 
Her appetite and relish for the jest 

Return as punctual as the dinner 's dressed. 

And see her speaking eye of you implore, 

" Do laugh — though you have heard it all before." 

What churl at this his muscles would restrain ? 

Let yours relax, — it shall not be in vain. 

She looks and acts ten thousand thankful things. 

And helps you to two luscious capon's wings ! 
Fie on the odious doctrine, somewhat rife, 

That marriage profits by a tinge of strife ; 

That life would grow, without some stringent jar, 

Tasteless as salad without vinegar. 

A savage creed ! gilding with phrase ornate 

Domestic jargon, hymeneal hate. 

There shall not come betwixt our model pair 

More than some transient difference, mild and rare. 



HUMAN LIFE. 523 

When mutual faults or shades steal in to show- 
That both still wander in these vales below, 
He reprimands by glancing with his eye, 
And she inflicts her soft reproach, a sigh. 
That is abundant feud for man and wife, 
More potent than whole Iliads of strife. 
Why need invective to make error smart. 
When gentle signs as deeply touch the heart ? 

One question more the marriage theme demands : 
How may a husband best adorn the bands ? 
How can a man that mystic secret find. 
To keep his partner ever true and kind ? 
To virtue's laws how make his offspring bend ? 
How fill the spheres of parent, master, friend ? 
In short, how spread a heaven above his dome ? 
Five words shall answer, — he must keep at home. 

And who from Home could ever wish to rove, 
That tranquil sphere of peace, and joy, and love ? 
Search Life's whole map, — of all its scenes so fair. 
Home is the brightest spot that glistens there. 
'T was there the light, first falling on our eyes. 
Gladdened our young existence with surprise. 
There, too, the smile, w^hich met our infant view, 
Straight to our lips with sweet contagion flew. 
Such were the lessons home could then instil ; 
Such heaven-like lessons it exhibits still. 
There flourish, where no envious arts encroach. 
Praise without flattery, blame without reproach. 
If you have virtues (and all men have some) 
Where can they find so kind a soil as home ? 
Your faults, though conned, are conned to be forgiven ; 
Each frown is mercy, and each smile is heaven. 
No outward trappings there deceive the eyes ; 
The native heart bursts through, and mocks disguise. 



524 HUMAN LIFE. 

There you may stroll, attired in dishiabille, 
And be allowed some share of merit still ; 
Nor blast your character (believe it, pray !) 
Should you go slipshod for a chance half-day. 

Of all the varying scenes that life can boast, 
Home suits the growth of wit and wisdom most. 
Besides its calm retreats and noiseless shade, 
Which lend philosophy the choicest aid, 
'T is there that Converse bids its glories roll, 
Converse, that choral interchange of soul ! 
Whatever else in social life we find 
Is but the body. Converse is the mind. 
Come, join the circle, — bid the language flow. 
Pluck from time's wings the blossoms ere they go ; 
Let every friend, undaunted, bear a part. 
To swell the fund of intellect and heart. 
But let us banish from this blest pursuit 
The shameless prater, and the shame-faced mute ; 
The one who talks, and talks, and talks, and talks. 
The other walks and sits, and sits and walks ; 
The one, a long obstreperous cascade. 
Usurps those beds where many rills had strayed ; 
The other, like a stagnant pool, is found 
Not only dull, but spreads contagion round.* 

I own there is a better kind of mute. 
Who cannot yield his share of common fruit. 
Poor souls ! they silent sit the evening long, 
At length risk something, and that something wrong. 
From these let Satire's shaft divert its aim. 
They need our sympathy, but not our blame. 

But who is she, retiring and alone, 
That makes her thoughts by sign and gesture known ? 

* The author was unconsciously anticipated in these two characters by 
Boileau, in his Satire on Woman. 



HUMAN LIFE. 525 

No sound can vibrate on her barren ear, 

No voice escape those lips in accents dear ; 

'T is one dead silence all from year to year. 

Yet let not pity too officious rise, 

Nature requites the blessings it denies. 

The expressive look, the motion fraught with grace, 

May rival language, and supply its place : 

And, for that senseless ear, perchance are given 

Ethereal sounds, and intercourse with heaven. 

But hark ! the envious clock proclaims the hour, 
And friends glide off, as leaves forsake the bower. 
Nor are you desolate, though left alone ; 
Home still has pleasures, pleasures all its own. 
There, as you loll beside your waning fire, 
And, like the embers, feel each care expire. 
Your dog, spoiled favorite ! slumbers on the floor, 
And, whimpering, dreams his day's adventures o'er ; 
While Puss, with fond, insinuating purr. 
Rubs by your ankle with her silken fur. 
And when the elastic frame's worn powers are fled, 
Home has a pillow for your drooping head. 
Where, as your drowsy thoughts, in broken train, 
Announce the approach of fancy's fairy reign. 
This is the last that floats upon the brain, — 
Search Life's whole map, of all its scenes so fair, 
Home is the dearest spot that glistens there. 

But endless questions start on every side : 
Let not your sweet forbearance be denied, 
While I discuss, with all consistent haste. 
Where shall the home we love so well be placed ? 
Shall rural scenes alone extort our praise ? 
Or shall the town engross our gliding days ? 
To show how rural scenes with me prevail 
I weave my notions in a simple tale. 



526 HUMAN LIFE. 

A weary laborer hailed the setting sun, 
And wandered home, — his long day's work was done. 
A rippling stream, that crossed his stony road, 
With broken gleams and tempting murmurs flowed ; 
He stooped to meet its pure and cooling brim, 
And gratefully refreshed each dusty limb. 
Then fared he on, with joy and freedom gay. 
And felt such raptures as departing day 
Yields to the child of nature. All the west 
In one calm, unrepulsive glare was dressed. 
Far to the north, clouds long and black were seen. 
And streaks of sky fantastic shone between. 
The south a heap of splendid vapors bore, 
"Which every moment differing colors wore ; 
While through the paler chambers of the east. 
The silvery moon her gradual pace increased. 
Oft did our laborer pause amid this scene, 
Forgetful of his supper on the green ; 
Forgetful even of his partner's smile. 
That could his utmost weariness beguile ; 
Forgetful of those little prattlers gay, 
That wont each eve to meet him on his way. 
Received the promised kiss, and strove for more. 
And gambolled round him till he reached the door, 
Then, when the well-conned prayer was duly said, 
With sighing resignation shrank to bed. 
Though joys like these were to his heart full dear. 
Yet pleasures more sublime allured him here. 
The lingering pace, and oft-uplifted eye, 
That traced quite round the variegated sky, 
The half-burst exclamation, all expressed 
The blissful transports that usurped his breast. 
But ah ! delight so thrilling cannot last : 
This ravished ecstasy at length was past, 



HUMAN LIFE. 527 

And trains of milder contemplation stole, 

By reason's hand directed, o'er liis soul. 

To childlike wonder manly thought succeeds, 

And God's own work to God's existence leads. 

" What generous power has all this beauty given ? 

And whence this rich ' magnificence of heaven ' ? 

Who sends the balmy fragrance of this air ? 

Who decks out Nature in her drapery fair ? 

Could harmony so perfect e'er combine 

Without the guidance of a wise design ? 

And whence did I my powers of thought acquire ? 

Who lighted up this sacred inward fire ? 

Who made my frame ? and who my feeling soul, 

Kindly diffusing pleasure through the whole ? 

'T was thou, great God ! I own thy power divine ; 

Such acts of wonder can be none but thine. 

To thee alone my happiness I owe ; 

Thou bidst my cup of blessings overflow ; 

And since thy mercies thus profusely pour, 

How can I aught but love thee and adore ? " 

Such were the musings of a rustic mind. 
Nature's plain dictates, simple, unrefined ; — 
And thus the lowliest hind that turns the sod 
May look through nature up to nature's God. 

Now view awhile the city's murky glare. 
Where noise and dust and smoke infest the air, 
Where works of man on every side arise. 
And scarce one trace of God salutes the eyes. 
" Sermons in stones ! " some pious poet sings ; 
" Sermons in stones ! " right-edifying things ! 
If so, in yonder well-paved town, I fear, 
Where every step their eloquence may hear, 
More homilies are trodden under foot. 
Than Chrysostom or Gregory ever wrote. 



528 HUMAN LIFE. 

But let us fairly grant tlie town its due : 
With faults, it has redeeming virtues too. 
Those splendid arts that lend to life a zest, 
Those darling charities that make it blest. 
Fly from the country's rude, ungenial air, 
In quest of social haunts, to nestle there. 
Hence, though all shapes of meanness swarm in town, 
Scarce are incorrigible niggards known. 
Where luxury's ten thousand channels flow. 
Where want obtrudes the ceaseless tale of woe, 
The frequent shilling from the pocket parts. 
And keeps the issue open of their hearts. 
Next, to the city's intellect must yield 
The vegetative wisdom of the field. 
As knowledge floats and shifts from ear to ear. 
The swelling mass becomes an atmosphere. 
The meanest artisans who. trudge the street. 
The poor canaille, who delve for present meat. 
Derive from frequent converse with mankind 
Much tact of character, and liberal mind. 
I should indulge more hope, by reason's light, 
To set a truckman than a ploughman right ; 
Though when by both the path of duty 's found. 
Then, I confess, my preference changes round. 
The truckman's head is sounder than his heart. 
The peasant's bosom is his better part ; 
The former often est yields to tempting things. 
The latter to his sturdy conscience clings. 

Thus, let your home be planted where you will. 
Expect, around you, blended good and ill ; 
Your door, thank Heaven, can still admit the good. 
And from your inner shrine the bad exclude. 

But ceaseless home is not for social man ; 
Duties abroad must share Life's mingled plan. 



HUMAN LIFE. 529 

And when the youth first quits his native nest, 
"What doubts and cares annoy his fledghng breast, 
As the vast range of public life he views, 
And trembling asks. Which calling shall I choose ? 
Choose the pale author's, — and behold my books 
Mangled by critics, and by pastry-cooks ? 
Choose the attorney's, — feast on breach of laws, 
Batten on quarrels, and subsist on flaws ? 
Choose the sad patriot-politician's lot, 
And by my grateful country — be forgot ? 
Choose the poor pedagogue's, and wield the rod ? 
Alas ! not mine the patience of a god ! 
Choose the j)hysician's, and inflict the pill, 
And get on well, as others get on ill ? 
Choose the divine's, and spend my strength to show 
My listening flock the way they will — not go ? 
Or choose the merchant's, sport of every wave ? 
O how superbly wealth shall heap — my grave ! 

Such is the gloom by public life displayed. 
To him who views it only in the shade. 
But if we scan it o'er with kinder eyes. 
From each profession happier tints shall rise. 

First, be the Author in the balance weighed. 
'T is true, he plies a thorny, thankless trade ; 
Condemned beneath the public beck to move, 
And pander to the taste he would improve, 
And who, to place his fame in decent light, 
Must write down malice, and make dulness bright. 
Yet he has pleasures, large, secure, unbought : 
No power can rob him of the bliss of thought. 
A few still smile, though all the world deride ; 
A few still smile, he cares for none beside. 
How well deserving of a nation's praise, 

45 



530 HUMAN LIFE. 

Who gives to lettered toil his studious days ; 

"Who, far abstracted from the rude world's din, 

Expatiates o'er that greater world within ! 

'T is his to stamp his country's rank and name, 

To fix her language, and extend her fame. 

No drudge in science, 't is his godhke fate 

To guide like Bacon, or like Scott create. 

His mind, o'erflowing with conceptions bright, 

Writes what it thinks, not thinks what it shall write, 

Pours its whole genius on the enchanted page, 

Adorns, improves, refines, exalts, the age. 

We own such giant spirits are but rare, — 

Yet do they languish in our country's air ? 

Or must we traverse the Atlantic o'er. 

To find that greatness on a foreign shore ? 

Not so ! such excellence can flourish here, — 

Does flourish, — brightens, moves our lettered sphere. 

Though half adored, from affectation free. 

And fled from pedants, Kirkland,* dwells with thee. 

Next, to the Lawyer's labyrinth draw near, 
Threading from maze to maze his dark career, 
By varying rules and precedents perplexed. 
Pushed by opponents, and by clients vexed. 
What wear and tear the harassed drudge must find, 
I do not say of conscience, but of mind ! 
Yes, lost to all that shame and truth demand, 
Who pour reproach on this much injured band ! 
Their short-eyed malice rashly represents 
The law mere subtlety and impudence ! 



* John Thornton Kirkland, D. D.,late President of Harvard University. 
The estimate presented of him in the text was hut the echoed sentiment of 
the surrounding literary community. 



HUMAN LIFE. 531 

Calumnious tongues ! as if the world ne'er saw 

A modest, upright steward of the law ! 

Whose faithful zeal, by no restraint outdone, 

Makes his own interest and his client's one ; 

Whose manful reasonings, lucid, fair, and sound, 

No wiles can match, no sophistry confound ; 

Whose stainless honor none suspects of blame, 

Pure as the tablet of a virgin's fame ; 

Whose fruitful wit can make law's barren field 

A harvest of exotic fancies yield ; 

In fine, who can sometimes defend the oppressed, 

And pocket for his fee — a quiet breast. 

Such is the face the slandered law presents ; 

Looks this like subtlety and impudence ? 

Ah ! at that bench in cypress hung so late. 

Where almost more than mortal wisdom sat. 

How justice reigned, — how prompt, exact, and pure ! 

How trembled vice, how virtue felt secure ! 

There Parsons,* like the sun, sank down to night. 

In full-orbed glory, majesty, and light ; 

Soon did the shadow into darkness grow. 

When Sewall,t bright twin-lustre, ceased to glow. 

Wherefore were both not destined to attain 

The long, sweet, tranquil twilight shed by Paine ? :|: 

Now shall I launch you on that stormy sea. 
Where loud-voiced Politics its rage sets free ? 

^ The justly celebrated Theophilus Parsons, LL.D., the foremost lawyer 
of his time. 

t Hon. Samuel Sewall, LL.D.. who succeeded Judge Parsons, for a 
very short time, on the bench of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. 

X The Hon. Robert Treat Paine, LL.D., one of the earUest judges 
of Massachusetts after the Revolution, had recently died at a very advanced 
age. 



532 HUMAN LIFE. 

Do I not hear a general murmur burst, 

" In mercy save us from that theme accurst ! 

Cling to Life's poetry, nor look behind, 

Where veering principle outstrips the wind. 

One day embargo, with its colors furled. 

The next, free intercourse with all the world ! 

Mobs, murders, patriots, factions, feathers, tar. 

With cabinets, and embassies, and war. 

Chaotic horror, and eternal gloom, 

Where truth and bliss and virtue find their doom 1 '* 

A truce with pictures pencilled by despair ! 
'T is not so dark and sickening everywhere. 
Does not, sometimes, a nation, nobly wise, 
On her best sons, instinctive, fix her eyes. 
Cheering them on, while, struggling in her cause. 
They weave her righteous, life-inspiring laws ? 
What though, along the lapse of twenty years, 
One Bonaparte hath whelmed the world in tears „ 
In the same space one Wellington hath shone, 
One Alexander, and one Washington. 

That name, for ever blest ! for ever dear ! 
How can it pall upon a free-born ear ? 
Shall our spent souls with feebler tumults glow, 
To hear the hallowed sound oft echoed ? No. 
Pilgrims may kiss their marble saints away, 
But his dear image never shall decay, 
Though still our grateful hearts unceasing homage pay. 

But turn from politics and public rule, 
To view the humble Teacher of a School. 
Hark ! as yon low-roofed mansion you draw near. 
What miscellaneous tumult strikes the ear ! 
The wholesome rod, perhaps too often swayed. 
The busy murmurs memory calls to aid, 



HUMAN LIFE. 

The unlawful whisper, and the bolder tongue, 
The tedious task, monotonously sung, — 
The tricks of mischief, which defy restraint, 
The mock apology, and mock complaint, — 
Genius too wild and confident to learn, 
Dulness too deep and sluggish to discern, — 
Whilst the whole scene, beneath its master's care, 
Seems like young Chaos, tutored by Despair. 

Yet though the pedagogue's dark lot be hard. 
Think not from pleasures he is quite debarred : 
Each crowded hour its special comforts brings. 
He sits in potent state, like other kings ; 
Sees many a subject reverently obey. 
And marks improvement grow from day to day. 
He doats, with something of a father's pride, 
On infant worth, close nestling by his side, — 
Sweet youth ! o'ercome by one forbidding look. 
Who hides his mournful face behind his book, 
But, when applauded for his task well said, 
Pulls down his waistcoat, and erects his head. 

Whilst thus the teacher glories in his boys. 
Another sex may still enhance his joys. 
Imagine, then, some pupil nymph consigned 
To you, the guardian of her opening mind, 
In all the bloom and sweetness of eleven. 
Health, spirits, grace, intelligence, and heaven ; 
While still from each exuberant motion darts 
A winning multitude of artless arts. 
Withal, such softness to such smartness joined, 
So pure a heart to such a knowing mind, 
So very docile in her wildest mood, 
Bad by mistake, and without effort good. 
So humbly thankful when you please to praise. 
So broken-hearted when your frown dismays. 



533 



534 HUMAX LIFE. 

So circumspect, so fearful to offend, 

And at your look so eager to attend, 

With memory strong, and with perception bright, 

Her words, her deeds, so uniformly right, 

That scarce one foible disconcerts your aims, 

And care and trouble — never name their names ! 

Yes, I forget, you have one anxious care, 

You have one ceaseless burden of your prayer : 

It is, — Great God, assist me to be just 

To this dear charge committed to» my trust. 

Such are the comforts of the teacher's lot. 
And if with these but blest, he murmurs not, 
But bears contentedly, as bear he must, 
The mixed renown of usefulness — and dust. 

And yet I cannot quite dismiss him here ; 
One word I 'II whisper in the Public's ear : 
Why on the teacher of our youth must wait 
A menial's wages, and a menial's fate ? 
Behold the man who all day long for years 
Moulds your child's life, — yes, even his smiles and tears ! 
His bosom's close companion w^hy not hail 
Your own companion in the social scale ? 

Now to the Healing Art one moment turn ; — 
And first the empiric we condemn and spurn, 
Who on the blindness of his brethren thrives, 
Tampering with their credulity and lives, — 
Unlike those angel-ministers of health, 
Who boast no " cure-alls," hoard no " patent " wealth, 
Distrust themselves, and follow nature still. 
Or compass science to complete their skilL 
Yes, when we find such men with healing powers, 
Soothing this miserable world of ours, 
Whose piercing eye can read your inmost frame, 
Whose mystic tact can gauge a fevers flame. 



HUMAN LIFE. 535 

"Who with a smile your ilhiess can rebuke, 

And make you convalescent by a look, 

It seems as if some more than mortal brood, 

On busy message of dispensing good. 

Had come, like pardoning legates from the sky, 

And half revoked the sentence, " Thou shalt die." 

Perhaps the ambitious youth, whose earnest aims 
Explore life's mingled periscope, exclaims : 
" I '11 be no jaded minister of health, 
But seek the Merchant's glittering prize of wealth." 
Beware ! that prize a thousand blanks surround ; 
Crowds of competitors usurp the ground. 
Commerce, I own, waves her enlightening hand. 
And in one wreath weaves every distant land ; 
But dire collapses and revulsions rush 
The wisest speculator's plans to crush. 
How often, too, may trade's low maxims wrest 
Truth, honor, right, from thy bewildered breast ! 
Yet, if the thought still fires, cast in thy lot. 
Some pass the quagmires, and contract no spot. 
Go, march to fortune's summits, and sit down 
With " merchant princes " in yon classic town.* 
Crowning, like them, the long, hard, tempting strife 
By unimpeached integrity of life. 
Serve, with thy treasures and thy liberal heart, 
Eeligion, Learning, Charity, and Art. 

Thus having roved o'er life's less hallowed round. 
Now may we venture upon holier ground ? 
One sacred task remains, though last, not least, 
To sketch the ideal of a Christian Priest ; 

* Boston. 



536 HUMAN LIFE. 

That bright example Heaven so rarely gives, 
Which died in Eliot,* but in Lowell f lives. 
The minister of God ! thrice awful name. 
Ah, who may dare its vital functions claim ? 
Yet, would you serve your God with zeal sincere, 
Approach and act, — naught frowns forbidding here. 
How blest, who spends his consecrated days 
In alternations sweet of prayer and praise. 
Who now soars high, in heaven-aspiring mood, 
Now treads his earthly round of doing good ! 
No scene of life by Providence is given. 
But he comes near to join that scene with heaven. 
With pure baptismal rite, and lifted eye, 
'T is he who drowns in prayer your infant cry ; 
'T is he who seals your holy marriage doom. 
Soothes your sick bed, — nor quits you at the tomb. 
Thus with life's every phase he mingles in. 
And strives, by word or deed, your souls to win. 
Hence, smiles from Heaven, from man esteem, he gains. 
And every house for him a home remains. 
Where'er he goes in duty's toilsome hours. 
Soft marks of friendship strew his way like flowers ; 
The kind inquiry, and the smile sincere, — 
The look respectful, and the attentive ear ; 
Even the rude boy, who bursts upon his sight, 
Bows, as he stops the trundling circle's flight. 
And should he sometimes glance at fashion's shrine. 
Where gay coquettes salute, defame, and shine, — 
Where nice gregarious fops together link. 
Talk, laugh, eat, play, and anything but think, — 



^ Kev. Dr. Eliot, then recently deceased, minister of the Second Church 
in Boston, 
t Rev. Charles Lowell, D. D. 



HUMAN LIFE. 

At his approach their wanton trifles fly, 
And cards and dice are reverently laid by. 

But men are men, — and, be the truth confessed, 
The pastor shares his troubles with the rest. 
His ways and means are sometimes hugely few, 
And his black coat is often threadbare too. 
Yet to such trifles cheerfully resigned. 
Graver and life-long cares o'erwhelm his mind. 
Hunting the whole first half-week for a text. 
To spin therefrom two sermons in the next, 
His sinking spirit craves some heavenly guide, 
To search the truth, and rightly to divide, 
To smite perennial waters from the rock, 
And rouse and charm and save his various flock. 

And who the pang can tell that cuts his heart. 
When some fond pastor tries his tenderest art 
To show an erring soul the path to heaven, 
And lo ! that flint-hke, dumb return is given, 
A strange, half-sanctified, sarcastic look. 
Which mocks instruction and defies rebuke ? 

Less sad than this, — when, on the week's last night, 
He seeks his desk, the homily to write. 
Some thoughtless neighbor slowly shuts the door. 
And runs the stock of village gossip o'er. 
Our good divine the fretful smile reserves, 
And breathes a prayer for patience and for nerves. 

Then when he roves abroad in freer air. 
And pays the willing visit everywhere. 
The jealous, kind complaint 't is his to hear, 
And guilt of wasted seasons wakes his fear. 
He and his flock his visits may condemn 
As profitless alike to him and them. 
" Cases of conscience " form not all their themes : 
He must partake in news, tales, whims, and dreams, 



537 



538 HUMAN LIFE. 

To every claimant yield attention due, 
Salute Tryphoena and Tryphosa too. 

" But must not books and study soothe his care ? " 
Somewhat, — yet is not peace unmixed even there. 
As o'er fell controversy's page he bends. 
Where truth hes bleeding from the wounds of friends, 
Sees Campbell lay Castalio on the rack 
And countless jokes on poor Montanus crack, 
Sees Lardner with his gravity dispense 
To torture "Wetstein into truth and sense, 
Sees Calvin's system even with Calvin clash, 
And sparks of ire from Christian bosoms flash, 
Sees saintlike foemen into sophisms fall. 
And pens of almost angels dipped in gall, 
He casts his eyes despairingly around. 
And asks, Perfection, where canst thou be found ? 

" But, if his study must unquiet be. 
Is not the pulpit from vexation free ? " 
The pulpit, friends ? alas ! 't is often there 
The sad quintessence dwells of his despair. 
Who would desire the pulpit for his sphere, 
When Gallios slumber, and when critics sneer ? 
There as he stands, with arguments arrayed 
No vice could front, no unbelief evade, 
Line upon line, precept on precept plies, 
Some dozing hearer dreams how bank-stocks rise ! 

Show me the church w^ho love their guide so well, 
His manner they o'erlook, and on his matter dwell. 
The veriest trifle in his dress or mien 
May mar the whole devotion of the scene. 
So Alcibiades a bird let fly. 
And caught each frivolous Athenian's eye. 
A lock misplaced — too long, too short, too sleek — 
May blast the labors of a studious week. 



HUMAN LIFE. 539 

In vain he urges their eternal good, 

His toilet first must win their serious mood. 

Nay, though his language in such lustre shone, 

As Blair or Buckminster were proud to own, 

Yet all in vain. Should he have chanced to tie. 

In haste his band unluckily awry, 

No Providence could more disturbance give — 

(I speak of things that on the record live.) 

If the brass serpent healed old Israel's pain. 

This fatal tie no less diffuses bane ; 

The sly contagion lurks from pew to pew, 

And taints the tittering congregation through. 

Strange, on the threshold of the heavenly ground, 

That earnest minds so seldom can be found ! 

But thus it is. Some give their hearts to gold, 

Some for a fatal appetite are sold. 

Some for a song ; and weaker still than that, 

Some perish smiling at a wry cravat ! 

Saddest, that this regard for outward form 
Pervades that sex with souls most pure and warm ! 
From one calamity Heaven shelter me, 
A fair, fastidious, critic-devotee ! 
Though to her church each Sabbath she repairs, 
And deeply loves its homilies and prayers. 
Nothing quite suits or edifies her there. 
If not propounded with a graceful air. 
This seems the touchstone of each word and deed. 
The Alpha, you would fancy, of l^er creed. 
If Enoch with a gait ungainly trod, 
She scarce believes he ever walked with God ; 
Would doubt the powers ascribed to Moses' wand. 
If wielded by a cramped or awkward hand ; 
To the true faith her heart would fain be won. 
If but the act may be genteelly done ; 



540 HUMAN LIFE. 

To all religion's laws devoutly yield, 

Just where religion chimes with Chesterfield. 

I give with pity, and no wish to mock, 
The spirit of her Sabbath-evening's talk. 
" How well that preacher moved along the aisle ! 
What holy gestures, what a reverend smile ! 
Did ever periods so devoutly roll ? 
Did ever cadence so convict the soul ? 
How piously the handkerchief was waved ! 
Sure such a nice man's audience must be saved ! 
The afternoon beheld a different treat ; 
Bare were the walls, and vacant many a seat. 
Nor strange that shepherd found so thin a fold, 
Who was so plain, so awkward, and so old ; 
Too antique-fashioned to be understood, 
Too unrefined to work our highest good. 
I own that he is faithful, worthy, true, 
But what can such insipid virtues do ? 
His earnestness repels, — his unction shocks. 
And one may be too strictly orthodox." 

O ye who deal fantastic praise and blame. 
Whose nimble tongues dispense and tarnish fame. 
Why thus the transient and the eternal blend ? 
Why make religion to a shadow bend ? 
Lo ! stern reality is brooding near ; 
Will sorrow, conscience, change, regret, and fear 
Give heed to fantasy's capricious breath ? 
Will outward graces charm the hour of death ? 

The hour of death ! I may not lift the screen, 
Which darkly mantles o'er life's closing scene ; 
Here end its folly, wisdom, pleasure, pain. 
Here too must cease my desultory strain. 

Yet, patient friends, before I bid adieu 
For ever to the lyre I strung for you. 



HUMAN LIFE. 541 

Indulge me still a momentary stay, 
To glean some scanty moral from my lay ; 
Nor, as a fond bequest, will you refuse 
The parting tribute of a grateful Muse. 

You all, my friends, a line of duty see, 
Drawn by the hand divine, that made us free. 
This line observed, promotes our being's aim. 
But this transgressed, our wretchedness and shame. 
Small wanderings make the fault, — the whim ; meantime 
Large deviations constitute the crime. 
The former move contempt, as weak or droll, 
The latter justly rouse the indignant soul. 
Custom, society, and law assign 
To each offence its punishment condign. 
The censor's lash, the poet's angry pen. 
Suffice to check the minor sins of men, 
While bold and flagrant misdemeanors draw 
A weightier vengeance from the offended law. 
This stern tribunal I may not approach. 
Nor on its high prerogative encroach. 
Enough for me to satirize the times, 
And prosecute your Liliputian crimes, — 
Gibbet some vice, detect some follies' gang, 
Flog scoundrel freaks, or private whimsies hang. 
And scourge the small atrocities of man ; 
'T is all I aim at, — all that Satire can. 

Now Satire has a double list of foes, 
Some to conciliate, others to oppose. 
One class deem all is levelled at their head ; 
They chafe and fume at everything that 's said ; — 
Poor self-made scapegoats, men without a skin, 
Who suffer penance for their neighbors' sin. 

The other tribe, of these the exact reverse, 
But who yet try the Satirist's patience worse, 
46 



542 HUMAN LIFE. 

Are they whom no rebuke can touch with shame, 

No sarcasm rouse, — though much the fairer game. 

If the most general vices you condemn. 

They join the censure, but you can't mean them I 

Pursued themselves, they mingle in the hunt, 

And, though the arrow rankles in their front. 

With keen and charitable zest look round. 

To see their neighbor twinge beneath the wound. 

This pair of portraits have their places here, 
To guard us from the extremes we all should fear. 
Ye, whose sore vengeance I have braved to-day, 
Chancing your peccadillos to display, 
Pray be not angry if the coat suits true, 
For I protest I did not measure you. 

And let us all that worse extreme beware. 
To relish satire, and disdain to share. 
"Why should we fondly think, complacent elves. 
The shaft hits anywhere but our dear selves ? 
Unfair it is to join the bantering laugh. 
And yet refuse to take our rightful half. 
No, no ! thou honest and thou liberal soul. 
Whom candor and humility control. 
Thou art not quite that monster of a saint, 
That claims exemption from the general taint. 
Thou ownst thy failings, since imperfect made. 
As every solid wears its following shade. 

But even these shadows wouldst thou brush away, 
And quicken virtue toward the perfect day. 
In duty's vital sphere be ever found, 
And strive to make that sphere not large but round. 
Perfection in the humblest globule lies. 
As in the bulkiest globe that decks the skies ; 
And thou mayst find among the narrowest streams 
The richest murmurs and the sweetest gleams. 



HUMAN LIFE. 543 

Then be content to range life's lowliest vale, 
Nor rashly breathe ambition's dangerous gale. 
Careless though rivals for a day excel, 
Polish thy little diamond talent well. 
Aim to do good, and good will surely flow ; 
Aim to he good, and Heaven will make thee so. 

But striving to complete thy little sphere, 
Study His vrill who kindly placed thee here, 
Nor from that sacred guide presumptuous stray. 
Who is himself the Life, the Truth, the Way. 
Walk in that way, and live that life divine, 
Believe that truth, — obey, and heaven is thine ! 
Heaven ! where our foibles and our faults shall close. 
And care and sorrow smile into repose. 
There, though no eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard, 
Nor heart conceived the mystic-meaning word. 
Yet, as once sang a brother, we may find 
" The grand Phi Beta Kappa of mankind." * 
New friendships there shall knit our growing powers, 
And happier warblings charm the bliss-winged hours ; 
The expanded soul shall breathe immortal air, 
And live indeed ! for Life is only there. 

=* I oncG found this line, as descriptive of the future state of the blest, in a 
manuscript poem delivered by some predecessor at one of the anniversaries 
of the PhL Beta Kappa Society. 



UNION ODE, 

COMPOSED FOR THE UNION PARTY OF SOUTH CAROLINA, AND 
SUNG JULY 4, 1831. 

Air. — " Scots wha liae wi' "Wallace bled." 

Hail, our country's natal morn ! 
Hail, our spreading kindred-born ! 
Hail, thou banner, not yet torn, 

Waving o'er the free ! 
While, this day, in festal throng. 
Millions swell the patriot song, 
Shall not we thy notes prolong, 

Hallowed Jubilee ? 

Who would sever Freedom's shrine ? 
Who v/ould draw the invidious line ? 
Though by birth one spot be mine, 

Dear is all the rest : 
Dear to me the South's fair land, 
Dear the central mountain-band, 
Dear New England's rocky strand. 

Dear the prairied West. 

By our altars, pure and free, 
By our Law's deep-rooted tree, 
By the past's dread memory, 
By our Washington, 



NEW-ENGLAND ODE. 545 

By our common parent tongue, 
By our hopes, bright, buoyant, young, 
By the tie of country strong, 
We will still be one. 

Fathers ! have ye bled in vain ? 
Ages ! must ye clroojD again ? 
Maker ! shall we rashly stain 

Blessings sent by Thee ? 
No ! receive our solemn vow. 
While before thy throne we bow, 
Ever to maintain, as now, 

Union, Liberty ! 



NEW-ENGLAND ODE, 

FOR THE UNIVERSAL SONS OF THE PILGRIMS, ON THE TWENTY- 
SECOND OF DECEMBER * 

Nevv^ England ! receive the heart's tribute that comes 

From thine own Pilgrim-sons far away ; 
More fondly than ever our thoughts turn to thee. 

Upon this, thine old Festival Day. 
We would rescue, with social observance and song, 

Awhile from oblivion's grave 
The loved scenes of our youth, and those blessings recall 

Which our country and forefathers gave. 

^ Composed for the New England Society at Charleston, and the Sons of 
the Pilgrims at Plymouth. 

46* 



546 NEW-ENGLAND ODE. 

We have gazed on thy mountains that whitened the sky, 

Or have roved on thy tempest-worn shore ; 
We have breathed thy keen air, or have felt thy bright fires. 

While we listened to legends of yore. 
We have gathered thy nuts in the mild autumn sun, 

And the gray squirrel chased through thy woods, 
From thy red and gold orchards have plucked the ripe store. 

And have bathed in thy clear-rolling floods. 

When thy snow has descended in soft, feathered showers. 

Or hurtled along in the storm. 
We have welcomed alike with our faces and hearts 

Its beauteous or terrible form. 
We have skimmed o'er thine ice with the fleetness of wind, 

We h'ave reared the thick snow-castle's wall. 
And have acted our part in the combat that raged 

With the liard-pressed and neatly-formed ball. 

We remember the way to those school-houses well. 

That bedeck every mile of thy land, 
We have loved thy sweet Sabbaths, that bade in repose 

The plough in its mid-furrow stand. 
We have joined in thy hymns and thy anthems, that swelled 

Through religion's oft-visited dome, 
We have blest thy thanksgivings, that summoned from far 

The long-parted family home. 

Can distance efface, or can time ever dim 

Remembrances crowding like these. 
That have grown with our growth, and have ministered strength, 

As the roots send up life to the trees ? 
Then be honored the day when the May-flower came. 

And honored the charge that she bore, 
The stern, the religious, the glorious men 

Whom she set on our rouojh native shore. 



FAIR HARVARD. 547 

New England ! speed yet in thine onward career, 

With thine inborn, all-conquering will : 
Still triumph o'er Nature's unkindliest forms, 

By thine energy, patience, and skill. 
Thou shalt grow to thy height, as thou ever hast grown, 

O'er the storms of ephemeral strife. 
And thy spirit, undying, shall cease not to be 

The deep germ of a continent's life ! 



FAIR HAEVARD. 

SUNG AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF HARVARD UNIVER- 
SITY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1836. 

Air. — " Believe me if all those endearing young charms." 

Fair Harvard ! thy sons to thy jubilee throng. 

And with blessings surrender thee o'er. 
By these festival-rites, from the age that is past. 

To the age that is waiting before. 
O Relic and Type of our ancestors' worth, 

That hast long kept their memory warm ! 
First flower of their wilderness ! Star of their night. 

Calm rising through change and through storm ! 

To thy bowers we were led in the bloom of our youth. 

From the home of our free-roving years. 
When our fathers had Warned, and our mothers had prayed, 

And our sisters had blest, through their tears. 
Thou then wast our parent, — the nurse of our souls ; 

We were moulded to manhood by thee. 
Till, freighted with treasure-thoughts, friendships, and hopes, 

Thou didst launch us on Destiny's sea. 



54:8 ODE AT A PICNIC 

When, as pilgrims, we come to revisit thy halls. 

To what kindlings the season gives birth ! 
Thy shades are more soothing, thy sunlight more dear, 

Than descend on less privileged earth : 
For the good and the great, in their beautiful prime, 

Through thy precincts have mugingly trod. 
As they girded their spirits, or deepened the streams 

That make glad the fair City of God. 

Farewell ! be thy destinies onward and bright ! 

To thy children the lesson still give. 
With freedom to think, and with patience to bear, 

And for Right ever bravely to live ! 
Let not moss-covered Error moor thee at its side, 

As the world on Truth's current glides by ; 
Be the herald of Light, and the bearer of Love, 

Till the stock of the Puritans die. 



ODE, 

SUNG AT A PICNIC OF THE CHARLESTON WASHINGTON LIGHT 
INFANTRY. 

Air. — " The Eine Old English Gentleman." 

O WHO are they that formed their ranks, a self-devoted band, 
When insult rude and lowering war assailed their native land, — 
Who bear inscribed upon their helms the world's most honored 

name. 
And wave their little Eutaw flag, baptized in blood and flame ? 
The Washmgtoii Light Infantry, old Charleston's loyal sons ! 



OF THE WASHINGTON LIGHT INFANTRY. 549 

And who are they that boast a line of leaders brave and true, — 
The mighty Lowndes, — the gifted Crafts, — and Cross, 

with eagle view, — 
And Simons, warm, — and Miller, bland, — and others yet on 

earth, 
Whose lengthened years God grant may prove co-equal with 

their worth ? 
The Washington Light Infantry, old Charleston's loyal sons ! 

And who are they, when trumpet-call and martial duties cease, 
Who gladly ply their civic toils, the gentle arts of peace, — 
Who love the social gathering too, in nature's green retreat, — 
The mossy shade, the woodland breeze, and friendship's cosy seat ? 
The Washington Light Infantry, old Charleston's loyal sons ! 

And who are they that find their most delightful task and care. 
In peace or war, to serve, protect, and gratify the fair, — 
From whom one smile of tender faith can largely overpay 
The fiery perils of the camp, or labors of the day ? 

Tlie Washington Light Infantry, old Charleston's loyal sons I 

And who are they that know full well each wild excess to check, 
And throw the rein of self-control round festive freedom's neck, — 
Who listen to the friendly words by age and wisdom given. 
And pause amid life's swift career to lend a thought to heaven ? 
The Washington Light Infantry, old Charleston's loyal sons ! 

And who are they that Avill, while time shall urge his onward 

flight. 
The soldier and the citizen thus faithfully unite, — 
Who will, should e'er their ranks be thinned, more close together 

grow, — 
Who never can a friend forget, nor quail before a foe ? 

The Washington Light Infantry, old Charleston's loyal sons ! 



550 ODE ON THE DEATH OF J. C. CALHOUN. 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF J. C. CALHOUN, 

SUNG AT A CELEBKATION OF HIS OBSEQUIES IN COLUMBIA, S. C. 

AiK. — German Hymn. 

Fare thee well ! From storms below, 
Tried and mighty spirit, go ! 
"Worker ! to thy high reward ; 
Faithful servant ! to thy Lord. 

Son and type of thy great time ; 
Prophet, with the eye subhme ; 
Statesman, in thyself a host ; 
Martyr, dying at thy post ! 

Rarest gifts in thee we saw ; — 
Thought — that probed each hidden law ; 
Presence — like a felt control ; 
Speech — that awed a nation's soul ; 

Mind of giant ; heart of child ; 
Quickly roused or reconciled ; 
Braving, but forgiving foes ; 
Stirred, that others might repose. 

Thou wast proud, confiding, free. 
Like thy State's own chivalry ; 
Moral stain couldst not endure. 
Like thy State's own daughters, pure. 



LINES WRITTEN AFTER MRS. PARSONS's FUNERAL. 551 

Thundering 'neath the Federal dome, 
Turnmg fondly to thy home, 
Feared, extolled, or disapproved. 
Still thou wast revered and loved. 

Falling at thy noon of fame. 
Thou, with ripe and world-wide name, 
Needst no more from life ; but we. 
Darkling here, have need of thee. 

God of nations ! quench the brand 
Cast on our imperilled land ; 
Bid our patriot's honored grave 
Speak the word which yet may save. 



LINES, 



WRITTEN AFTER THE FUNERAL OF MRS. PARSONS (mARY WEN- 
DELL holmes), in CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



A BITTER silence reigned around that bier. 

Where fairest youth and brightest genius slept ; 

The grief we felt knew no relieving tear ; 

Our hearts loithin — our bleeding bosoms — wept. 

Not there was heard the careless, idle talk 
So oft exchanged above the common dead ; 

Humbled and soft we took our graveyard walk. 
And neared that tomb with vague, reluctant tread. 



652 HYMN FOR AN ORDINATION. 

She was the wonder of her native green, 

By rich and poor, by high and low, beloved ; 

Transplanted thence, she knew no change of scene, — 
There were no strangers where her presence moved. 

Mary ! what power has stayed thy happy breath ? 

Sure thine elastic spirit sprang on high ; 
We deemed thee not a creature formed for death ; 

Religion tells the truth, — thou couldst not die. 

Who ever heard or witnessed thee but praised ? 

Age, learning, softened at thine artless wile ; 
Even rival loveliness unenvious gazed, 

And childhood caught from thee its sweetest smile. 

Thou dazzling grace of beauty's sparkling halls, 
Thou early votary of the studious cell. 

Glad visitant of poverty's cold walls. 
And, most, thou ornament of home, farewell ! 

Wide was the circle by thy loss bereaved, 
All seemed to mourn a sister's life-star set ; 

And one, a passing pilgrim, sadly weaved 
This funeral wreath of friendship and regret. 



HYMN FOR AN ORDINATION. 

Father ! thy rich spirit shed 
On this youthful suppliant's head ; 
Soothe his self-distrusting tears, 
Temper his abounding fears ; 



HYMN FOR AN ORDINATION. 553 

Guide his vast and liigh desire ; 
Touch his lips with coals of fire ; 
Pour thy truth upon his soul, 
O'er the thirsting Church to roll- 
In thy vineyard called to toil, 
Wisely may he search the soil ; 
Sinners may he love and win, 
Whilst he hates and brands the sin ; 
Give him boldness for the right. 
Give him meekness in the fight ; 
Teach him zeal and care to blend ; 
Give him patience to the end. 

Seal, this day, the vows that hold 
Flock and shepherd in one fold ; 
May he well those mandates keep. 
Feed my lambs, and, Feed my sheep. 
Bless his home, his watch-tower bless ; 
Guide him, with thy gentleness, 
In the path once taught and trod 
By the enduring Son of God. 

Grant him, in his charge, to find 
Listening ear and fervent mind. 
Helpful counsels, deepening peace, 
Earnest life, and glad increase. 
May they, by each other led. 
Grow to one in Christ their head ; 
And at last together be 
Eipe for Heaven, and meet for Thee ! 



47 



554 THE WHOLE WORLD KIN. 



THE PLEDGE, 

FOR A TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. 

"When Sin invites with aspect fair, 
And Misery broods beneath the snare, 
And Habit clasps with fell control, 
We pledge — for the Immortal Soul ! 

When Man, imbruted, can despise 

His fond wife's tears, his children's cries, 

The care of self, the social plan. 

We pledge for hee, thou Brother-Man ! 

And since on us the future fate 
Of myriads yet unborn may wait. 
Though small the sacrifice will be, 
We pledge, Posterity, for thee ! 

Since thou. Creator, dost prefer 

The meek and stainless worshipper, — 

From pride and self-reliance free. 

We pledge, O God ! we pledge for thee ! 



THE WHOLE WORLD KIN. 

A sailor's cheek is browned, a lady's white ; 
The tear on each has- *^-ual warmth and light. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF A PUPIL. 555 



BETHLEHEM'S GEEATNESS. 

" And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the 
princes of Juda." — Matt. ii. 6. 

Wherein, O Bethlehem, doth thy greatness lie ? 
In warlike host, proud tower, or palace high ? 
" No ! a sweet babe's first slumber I have seen. 
And hence the cities own me for their queen." 



CHARACTERISTICS OF A PUPIL. 

I CAN describe thee in one half a line, 

Dear Susan, thus: — completely feminine. 

'T is this that makes thee self-possessed and meek ; 

This drives those lights and shades across thy cheek 

This gives thy flexile soul, and flexile form ; 

Makes thee, with feelings delicate and warm. 

Quick, faithful, patient, accurate, prepared 

In Memory's tasks, however light or hard. 

'T is this, too, Susan, (ah, true woman's fate !) 

Deepens the puzzling mysteries of thy slate ! 



THE SILENT GIRL. 

She seldom spake ; yet she imparted 
Far more than language could ; 

So birdlike, bright, and tender-hearted, 
So natural and gof \ 



556 THE SILENT GIRL. 

Her air, lier look, her rest, her actions, 

Were voice enough for her ; 
Why need a tongue, when those attractions 

Our inmost hearts could stir ? 

She seldom talked, — but, uninvited, 

Would cheer us with a song ; 
And oft her hands our ears delighted, 

Sweeping the keys along ; 
And oft, when converse round v/ould languish, 

Asked or unasked, she read 
Some tale of gladness or of anguish, — 

And so our evenings sped. 

She seldom spake ; but she would listen 

With all the signs of soul ; 
Her cheek would change, her eye would glisten ; 

The sigh, the smile, upstole. 
Who did not understand and love her, 

With meaning thus o'erfraught ? 
Though silent as the sky above her. 

Like that, she kindled thought. 

Little she spake ; but dear attentions 

From her would ceaseless rise ; 
She checked our wants by kind preventions, 

She hushed' the children's cries. 
And, twining, she would give her mother 

A long and loving kiss ; 
The same to father, sister, brother, — 

All round, — nor one would miss. 

She seldom spake. She speaks no longer ; 
She sleeps beneath yon rose ; — 



THE SUNBEAM ON MY PATH. 557 

'T is well for us that ties no stronger 

Awaken memory's woes, 
For oh ! our hearts would sure be broken, 

Already drained of tears. 
If frequent tones by her outspoken 

Still lingered in our ears. 



THE SUNBEAM ON MY PATH. 

Late a wanderer far from home, and subdued by pensive care, 
I lighted on a stranger form, young, feminine, and fair. 
" I will bring for you, O pilgrim ! " the vision seemed to say, 
" A sunbeam on your path, a blessing on your way." 

And soon we grew acquainted, though we wist not how or why : 
She divined my tastes and moods with her quick, sagacious eye ; 
Giving and winning confidence, — gay, but serenely gay, — 
A sunbeam on my path, a blessing on my way. 

She was a gracious listener, but when discourse declined, 
She filled the threatening pauses with her sprightly bursts of mind. 
One week we dwelt together, but she made it seem a day, — 
That sunbeam on my path, — that blessing on my way. 

By quiet ministrations of a thousand nameless deeds. 
She averted my mishaps, she supplied my hourly needs ; 
Ever studious, like a daughter, to comfort and obey, — 
A sunbeam on my path, a blessing on my way. 

A hundred damsels pass me, without one look or smile. 

From whom the gray-haired gentleman no deference can beguile ; 



558 THE HISTORY OF A RAY OF LIGHT. 

Then why did she so fancy me ? and why so strangely lay 
A sunbeam on my path, a blessing on my way ? 

I must somewhat believe in those famed mesmeric spheres, 
By which heart recoils from heart, or heart with heart coheres. 
One man you loathe, you know not why ; another pleases, nay, 
Is a very sunbeam in your path, an angel in your way. 

At length, when Duty beckoned us, our separate wa3''s we took. 
With the firmly pressing hand, and the silent, farewell look ; 
But very oft, from home's dear bowers, will grateful memory stray 
To that sunbeam on my path, that blessing on my way. 

And when, as soon must happen, my worn head in dust lies low, 
And she, still blessing others, through this mingled world shall go, 
Grant her, my Heavenly Father, I here devoutly pray, 
Such sunbeams on her path, such angels on her way. 



THE HISTORY OF A RAY OF LIGHT. 

The hint for the following composition was derived from a recent dis- 
covery by a Swedish botanist; namely, that there are certain flowers which 
emit, in the darkness of evening, the rays of hght imbibed from the sun 
during the day. A thought hence occurred to the writer, that each individ- 
ual ray of hght may possibly in this manner perform a variety of successive 
functions, and even be efficiently darting about from object to object, and 
from one quarter of creation to another, for an indefinite number of years. 
Should the idea be questioned, as not strictly philosophical, it must be con- 
tent to aspire no higher than to the character of fanciful. 

" Let there be light ! " creation's Author spoke, 
And quick from chaos floods of splendor broke ; — 
On that magnificent, primeval morn, 
Myself, an humble ray of light, was born. 



THE HISTOKY OF A RAY OF LIGHT. 

Vain were tlie task to guess my native place ; 
Rushing, careering, furiously through space, 
Plunged amid kindred rays and mingling beams, 
These are my first of recollection's gleams. 
O, with what joy we rioted along ! 
Darting afar, in young existence strong, 
Onward we poured the unaccustomed day 
Through tracts, the length of many a milky way. 
(For know, we rays of light are living things, 
Each with ten thousand pair of brilUant wings : 
No wonder, then, when all those wings are stirred, 
We flit it so much faster than a bird.) 
At last, when youthful years and sports were done, 
Choice, chance, or duty, brought me to your sun ; 
And while my brother pencils fled afar, 
To swell the glories of some viewless star, 
'T was mine to fly about this nook of heaven, 
Where one huge orb gave light and heat to seven ; * 
Although short visits now and then I make 
To distant spheres, for recreation's sake. 

Ah ! ne'er shall I forget the eventful day 
When to this planet first I sped my way : 
To many a twinkling throb my heart gave birth. 
As near and nearer I approached the earth. 
What was to be my fate ? for ever lost 
In some dark bog ? or was I to be tost, 
In wild reflection, round some narrow spot. 
Then sink absorbed, inglorious and forgot? 
No, reader, no, — far different the career 
Which fate designed me to accomplish here : 
Millions of splendid scenes 't was mine to grace. 
Though my first act brought ruin to your race. 



659 



* Our luminous autobiographer seems to take no account here of the 
Asteroids in the solar system. 



560 THE HISTORY OF A RAY OF LIGHT. 

Trembling, I reached the serpent's ghstening eye, 
Then glanced, and struck the apple hanging by, 
Then to your mother Eve reflected, flew. 
And thus, at one exploit, a world o'er threw ! 

scene of woe ! the mischief I had wrought, 

Those quick successive shocks, that stunned my thought. 

The poisonous magic from that sire of lies, 

The keen contagion in that woman's eyes, 

All were too much for one poor ray of light, 

New to his task, and meaning only right. 

Distressed in heart, at once myself I hurled 

Far to the outside of this injured world, 

"Wishing to wear my wretched life away 

'Mid scenes where solitude and chaos lay. 

At length, while wandering o'er those realms of woe, 

1 heard a small, sweet voice, that whispered low. 
In tones of soothing, — 't was a brother ray 
Sent from the hand that first created day. 

" No longer mourn," the darting angel said, 

" The hopes of man are not for ever fled : 

From his own race a Saviour shall arise. 

To lead him back to his forbidden skies ; 

And hark ! when Bethlehem's beauteous star shall shine. 

Its first and freshest radiance shall be thine ! " 

Cheered by these words, I longed to gain once more 
This lovely world, and try my fortune o'er. 
Just then a globe, new struck from chaos out, 
Met me, and turned my headlong path about ; 
Back to the sun with breathless speed I flew. 
And thence rushed down, where bright to Noah's view 
The glorious rainbow shone, — a lingering stop 
I made within a small pellucid drop, 
Glazed its internal concave surface bright. 
Back through the globule travelled, and outright 
Darted through air to glad the patriarch's sight. 



THE HISTORY OF A RAY OF LIGHT. 561 

Glancing from tlience away, I sported on 

Where'er by pleasure or by duty- drawn ; — 

Now tipping some bright drop of pearly dew, 

Now plunging into heaven through tracks of blue, 

Now aiding to light up the glorious morn, 

Or twilight's softer mantle to adorn. 

Now darting through the depths of ocean clear 

To paint a pearl, — then to the atmosphere 

Again reflected, shooting to the skies 

Away, away, where thought can never rise ; 

Then travelling down to tinge some valley-flower, 

Or point some beauty's eye with mightier powder, 

Or to some monarch's gem new lustre bring, 

Or light with fire some prouder insect's wing, 

Or lend to health's red cheek a brighter dye, 

Or flash delusive from consumption's eye. 

Or sparkle round a vessel's prow by night. 

Or give the glowworm its phosphoric light. 

Or clothe with terror threatening anger's glance, 

Or from beneath the lids of love to dance, 
Or place those little silver points on tears. 
Or light devotion's eye while mercy hears ; — 
In short, to aid, with my poor transient flings, 
All scenes, all passions, all created things. 

Few rays of-light have been where I have been. 
Honored like me, or seen what I have seen : 
I glowed amid the bush which Moses saw, 
I lit the Mount when he proclaimed his law : 
I to that blazing pillar brought my mite. 
Which glared along old Israel's path by night : 
I lent a glory to Elijah's car, 
And took my promised flight from Bethlehem's star. 

But not to holy ground was I confined ; 
In classic haunts my duties were assigned. 
I primed the bolts Olympian Jove would throw, 



562 THE HISTORY OF A RAY OF LIGHT. 

And Pluto sought me for Ms fires below ; 

Over and over gallant Phoebus swore, 

I was the finest dart his quiver bore ; 

Oft was I sent, a peeping, anxious ray 

From Dian, hastening where Endymion lay ; 

When Iris shot from heaven, all swift and bright. 

Thither I rushed, companion of her flight ; 

From Vulcan's anvil I was made to glare ; 

I lent a horror to the Gorgon's stare ; 

I too have beamed upon Achilles' shield. 

And sped from Helen's eye when Paris kneeled ; 

Faithful Achates, every school-boy knows. 

Struck from a flint my whole long year's repose ; 

Ten wretched days I passed in sobs and sighs. 

Because I could not dance on Homer's eyes : 

I once was decomposed from that pure oil 

Which cheered the Athenian sage's midnight toil ; 

I from the brazen focus led the van, 

When Ai'chimedes tried his frightful plan ; 

'T was I from Cleopatra's orb that hurled 

The fatal glance, which lost her slave the world : 

I struck the sweetest notes on Memnon's lyre. 

And quivered on the Phoenix' funeral pyre. 

Nor ancient scenes alone engrossed my pranks. 
The moderns likewise owe me many thanks. 
Straight in at Raphael's skylight once I broke. 
And led his pencil to its happiest stroke ; 
I sparkled on the cross Belinda wore, 
And tipped the Peri's wing of Thomas Moore ; 
To Fontenelle I glided from above. 
When whispering soft astronomy and love ; 
And know, whene'er the finest bards have sung 
The moon's sweet praises with bewitching tongue. 
Or that blue evening star of mellow light, 
'T was always after I had touched their sight. 



THE HISTORY OF A RAY OF LIGHT. 563 

Nor yet have Poetry and Painting shared 
My sole regards, — for Science I have cared. 
When Galileo raised his glass on high, 
Me first it brought to his astonished eye ; 
When Newton's prism unloosed the solar beams, 
I helped to realize his heaven-taught dreams ; 
When Herschel his dim namesake first descried, 
I was just shooting from that planet's side. 
At all eclipses and conjunctions nigh, 
Of sun, or satellite, or primary. 
Oft have I served the longitude to fix ; — 
And heavens ! in June of eighteen-hundred-six, 
How all New England smiled to see me burst 
Out from behind her darkened sun the first ! 
I formed a spangle on the modest robes 
Of Doctor Olbers' new-discovered globes ; 
I from the comet's path was downward sent, 
When Bowditch seized me for an element. 
Once travelling from a fourth-rate star to earth, 
I gave the hint of aberration birth. 
I led the electric flash to Priestley's sight. 
And played my sports round Franklin's daring kite ; 
Absorbed in copper once I long had lain. 
When lo ! Galvani gave me life again. 
I taught the Swede that, after sunny days, 
Lilies and marigolds will dart forth rays ; 
And when polarity made savants stare 
For the first time, be sure that I was there. 
When iron first in oxygen was burnt, 
When Davy his metallic basis learnt, 
When Brewster shaped his toy * for peeping eyes, 
And Humboldt counted stars in Southern skies, 
'T was I that moved, while bursting on their sight. 
The fiush of wonder, triumph, and delight. 

* The Kaleidoscope. 



564 THE HISTORY OF A RAY OF LIGHT. 

Nor scarce does history boast one splendid scene, 
Or deep-marked era, where I have not been. 
The sky-hung cross of Constantine, -^hich turned 
All Rome to truth, by my assistance burned ; 
When the Great Charter England's rights restored, 
I scared her monarch from a baron's sword ; 
When pious Europe led the far crusade, 
Did I not flash from Godfrey's wielded blade ? 
Did chivalry one tournament display 
Of dazzling pomp, from which I kept away ? 
Was I not present at that gorgeous scene. 
Where Leicester entertained old England's queen ? 
Did I not sparkle on the iron crown 
Wliich the triumphant Corsican took down ? 
Did I not revel where those splendors shone. 
When the fourth George assumed Britannia's throne ? 
And last, not least, could I refuse to hear 
The summons of the Atlantic Souvenir ? * 
No, gentlest reader, trust your humble ray, 
'T is here at length I would for ever stay, 
If to and fro I could descend and rise 
'Twixt these bright pages and your brighter eyes ; 
Absorbed, reflected, radiated, bent. 
With force emitted, or for ages pent. 
Through the wide world so long and often tost. 
The excursive passion of my youth I 've lost. 
I wish no more in my six-thousandth year. 
Than just to take my peaceful mansion here, 
To deck these limnings with my happiest art. 
And 'mid these leaves to play my brightest part. 

* Firsi published in the Annual of tliat name. 
1822. 

THE END. 



LRBMv'26 



I. 



